BOOKS
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nificant places in the history of advanced painting, their relative posi–
tions and powers may be uncertain: most of Gorky's work, and much
of Tomlin's precede the abstract expressionism of the present.
In her discussion of Gorky's importance, Mrs. Schwabacher strenu–
ously resists the notion advanced by Clement Greenberg that Gorky's
painting was an end and not a beginning, so far as the history of art
is concerned; she insists that younger painters have been influenced by
Gorky, creatively, and that his work points to the future. Quite pos–
sibly she has in mind the force of his genius, the power of his dedica–
tion, the tragedy of his life, but nowhere does she suggest what she
thinks younger painters will learn or have learned from him. Mr. Baur
does not speak of Tomlin's possible influence on other painters, but
he speculates more openly on Tomlin's possible directions had he lived.
In their last pictures, it seems to me, both painters indicated that
they might have gone on to work rather differently if their careers had
not finished so abruptly. Mrs. Schwabacher, in her admiration for
Gorky's great works, sees his
Last Painting
1
as "non-art"; on the con–
trary, I would single out that picture for its hints of future possibilities.
It is the first of Gorky's pictures, with the exception of
The Limit,
to
be not at all a painting of a picture, or a picture of a scene however
shallow, abstract or surrealist. It suggests a more recent conception
of the surface and of space, such as we find in the work of Still, Mother–
well, Kline, and Rothko. As for Tomlin, whose death occurred five
years later than Gorky's, he left work which had already reached a
later stage, almost as if art were acting independently of its artists.
Around the time Gorky died, Tomlin, influenced by Gottlieb, developed
his all-over style of white ribbon-y forms which, in the year before his
1 My reference is to
Last Painting 1948
as listed in Mrs. Schwabacher's book,
not to the picture of the same name and date listed in the catalogue of the
Janis Gallery exhibition.
HELEN FRANKENTHALER
Jan. 6-25
ROBERT GOODNOUGH
Jan. 28 - Feb. 15
PAUL FEELY
Feb. 25- Mar. 15
Tl BOR DE NAGY GALLERY
24 E. 67 St. (corner Madison)
N.Y.C.
EDITOR'S NOTE
The Stillness of 'Light in Au–
gust'
by Alfred Kazin, in the
Fall,
1957
issue of
PR,
will ap–
pear in
Twelve Original Essays
on Great American Novels,
edit–
ed by Charles Shapiro, to be
published by Wayne State Uni–
versity Press.
