418
PARTISAN REVIEW
ments are of the abstract-surrealist school, and though they are well
composed, they are anaemic. For all their sexual subject matter, and
their unsubtle reference, they lack a plain, honest lustiness of spirit to
match their themes. A little common vulgarity would improve their
cleverness. An overrefined wit also disturbs one's enjoyment of Smith's
reliefs. His compositions, though they are done in wire in the most
modem manner, are similar to the illusionistic relief space of Hellenistic
art, and the rather obscure allegorical references of his subjects match
this form. Smith's imagination is a fertile one, and his sense of design
sound; but one wonders if his use of wire is not a fetish of the moment,
as indirect a way of stating his sense of atmospheric relief as his alle–
gories are of stating his themes. Also worthy of mention among the
younger sculptors is Helen Phillips, a newcomer to the East, who showed
a small group of subtly composed bronzes.
This partial summary of the season would be altogether incomplete
without some mention of its most important single event: the suspen–
sion, in mid-career, of the two State Department traveling exhibitions.
These shows, seen here as a unit in the fall at the Metropolitan Museum
(the Museum's one contribution to contemporary art, including its
Mestrovic exhibition), were stopped at Prague and Cuba as a result of
pressure from the Hearst press, which poured upon them all the shop–
worn, but apparently still effective, old epithets. The only encouraging
aspect of this affair was the unanimous protest of all artists and critics
without regard for personal opinion of the individual works. How much
weight their voices will carry is another matter.
RoBERT GoLDWATER
