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PARTISAN REVIEW
unconventional mix of works by the well known, the forgotten, the ar–
cane and the surprising. Milton Avery, John Graham, Gaston Lachaise,
and Alfred Maurer were handsomely represented, but so were - more
unexpectedly, given the abstract work for which they were known -
David Smith, Archile Gorky, and Hans Hofmann. Lee Krasner's work,
among others, was testimony to the influence of Hofmann's teaching;
Maurice Sterne's Rodin-like nudes bore witness to his years in Europe;
Marsden Hartley's robust male figure declared the artist's passion and
power. There were drawings by such significant but little exhibited per–
sonages as Jan Matulka, who introduced a generation at the Art Students
League (including David Smith) to Cubism, and Edgar Levy, another
member of Smith's circle and one of the first to grasp what Picasso had
to offer. And so on. Part of the fun was a dense hanging and a mix that
made the viewer really work at deciding who was who - unless, of
course, you cheated and used the checklist.
Twining showed concurrently a group of Dorothy Dehner's sculp–
tures and drawings, to coincide with her mini retrospective at the Baruch
College Gallery. (She was included in
The Nude,
as well.) Her monu–
mental
Sanctum with Window
JI,
1990-91 dominated because of its pow–
erful architectural references and commanding, clear-headed structure.
The weight of Dehner's long experience showed - she's been making
serious art for well over sixty years - but the piece had an energy and
daring best described as youthful.
It
is one of Dehner's strongest works
to
date.
At Baruch, a large selection of her spiky, disturbing drawings en–
tered into a dialogue with a smaller grouping of sculptures, permitting
interesting speculations about the meaning of the neutral, rather simpli–
fied forms of the bronze and steel sculptures, more explicitly rendered in
pen and ink. The earlier drawings, especially, provoked speculations, as
well, about the relation of Dehner's work
to
that of David Smith,
to
whom she was married for nearly twenty-five years. Crosscurrents were
evident in the caged forms and insect-like figures of Dehner's drawings,
but the marks of her distinctive personality were also apparent. It's good
to see attention being paid to Dehner while she can still enjoy it. She's a
gallant lady, a dedicated artist, and, happily for us, a survivor.
At about the same time, in April, Janie
C.
Lee Gallery, New York,
and Kate Ganz Ltd., London, collaborated to produce an even more
ambitious and eclectic exhibition than Twining's:
Master Drawillgs: 1520-
1990.
As might be expected, the modernist works - Cezanne and Degas
to the present - tended
to
be on a more consistently high level than the
earlier drawings, and among the old masters, "lesser" figures often were
represented by far stronger works than their well-known contemporaries;
there were exceptions, such as a little Guercino study of four heads, a
