264
PARTISAN REVIEW
of the 1940s than as a wholly new voice. I am afraid that the answer to
the catalogue's rhetorical question, "Is it possible that [Wheeler's work]
can revise and add significantly to the way we look at the birth of post–
war contemporary art?" (whatever "post-war contemporary" means, ex–
actly) is "yes, but not much."
One of the strongest shows of the winter and an exhibition that
should
revise and add significantly to the way its author has been viewed,
lately, was Stephen Greene's group of recent works at David Beitzel Gal–
lery. At seventy-seven, Greene has a band of loyal admirers and a solid
reputation both as a painter and a teacher that dates back about half a
century: the phrase "painters' painter" is for once accurate. But in the past
few years, some of us have noted with annoyance that Greene has more
often been characterized (accurately, of course) as "Philip Guston's stu–
dent and Frank Stella's teacher" than as a painter to be reckoned with for
his own merits. The show at Beitzel, of paintings made over the past
three or four years, should return the primary focus of attention to
Greene the painter.
His recent works revealed his undiminished ability to create an utterly
convincing, mysterious universe at once achingly beautiful and deeply
disturbing. Greene is a master of expressive paint handling who can play
rough scumbles against delicate washes and scratchings, or spread dense
layers of pigment as though concealing things too intimate to be revealed.
He is a master, too, of brooding hues, at once ravishing and abrasive.
Recognizable and sometimes not so recognizable fragmentary images -
the body parts, skulls, crutches, flowers, and the like that have haunted
Greene's pictures for decades - emerge at intervals from pools of these
colors and then subside. This sounds like late Surrealism, both misleading
and a disservice to Greene's paintings - which is not to say that the pic–
tures don't depend, ultimately, upon pure intuition and the guiding hand
of the unconscious. But if you are looking for an analogy for Greene,
think Gorky, rather than - say - Matta. Or better still, think Greene. His
strange, lyrical, edgy pictures more than stand on their own; they are
cranky, lush, seductive, irritating, and hard to forget.
The same adjectives could apply to the best works in Sandi Slone's
survey show at the Jersey City Museum (see "braving the weather to see
an exhibition") . As has been true of Slone's work over the twenty-odd
years that she has been exhibiting, they were distinguished by their si–
multaneous fragility and toughness, their delicacy and rudeness. Color and
touch can be tender, almost pastoral, but Stone reasserts her urban street–
smarts and reminds us of the willfulness of picture-making by imposing an
assortment of materials ranging from bone to plastic jewelry on her ex–
panses of delicate hues, using them, however, simply as another way to
