ART CHRONICLE
281
blotchily. But a picture like "Circular Shifting" is not helped by them
at all; those careful areas of olive-y green and tomato orange at the
lower left seem to assert a surface at variance with the rest of the
picture, but not in any ironic fashion, and not by creating a tension
between the squares and the rest. Clearly, such devices are unpredictable
in their effects; they cannot
be
initially good or bad, but, like heavy
outlining, or circles around focal points, like unpainted areas in a
finished picture, or dead areas in a busy one, these devices yield only
to the pragmatic test. For Hofmann these squares may imply the de–
velopment of a new style or they may be more closely related to some
aspects of his work which are not vivid in my mind. It
is
for this
reason that I should like to see the range of his work now.
Since these notes were assembled, many interesting shows
will
have opened; I am sorry not to be able to comment on some of them,
particularly the Whitney show of young Americans, the Matta and
Ferren shows, and Helen Frankenthaler's. I have not usually liked
Ferren's work, but reports of his recent show interest me. Helen
Frankenthaler's painting becomes more impressive each year; she has
just had her fifth one-man show at the de Nagy Gallery, and is one
of the most interesting of the younger painters. Much of her work
is
characteristic of the contemporary temper in the way it consolidates
past gains. She shows, however, a conscious response to abstract tradi–
tions, rather than the kind of unconscious imitation that often prevails
among less gifted painters.
Indeed, one should be able to say of the best contemporary painters
something like what Dryden said about Jonson and the Ancients: "he
invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets,
is only victory in him."
Sonya Rudikoff
CONTEMPORARY
PAINTING
SCULPTURE
•
LEO CASTELLI
4
E 77
2-6 PM
April
8-27-------~
Charles
SHAW
Passedoit Gallery
Paintings
121 E. 57, N. Y.
bet. Park
&
Lex.
