Off the Radar: A Critic's Choice [selected by William Packer]

Off the Radar

A CRITIC’S CHOICE Selected by William Packer

Off the Radar

A Critic’s Choice selected by William Packer

12th September – 5th October 2018

Monday – Friday 10.00 – 5.30 Saturday 11.00 – 2.00

Browse & Darby 19 Cork Street London W1S 3LP Tel: 020 7734 7984 Fax: 0207851 6650 email: art@browseanddarby.co.uk www. browseanddarby.co.uk

Introduction That far more bad Art is ever produced than good is among the most obvious of truisms. No less true, but rather more worth pointing out is that far more that is good, indeed very good, is done than will ever achieve the wider and lasting recognition that, by any fair judgement, it would deserve. Critical fashions change, and reputations fade. The present is ever with us, in all its novelty and excitement. Each generation’s natural pre-occupation is with itself, and it is the privilege of youth to think it knows best.

It should not be its privilege, however, to dismiss the achievements of previous generations out of hand, let alone forget them altogether. Yet the trouble is that those whom we might expect to make it a compensatory duty to keep past achievement, set broadly in its proper critical and cultural context, still alive and valued in the collective mind – the curators and directors of our public museums, collections and institutions, and the critics who dance attendance on them – seem set nowadays on doing no such thing.

Instead, they too sing Youth’s old sweet song, and brook no denial of their priorities in running to catch up with the right kind of art, which is to say the latest thing. And with the death of curatorial recollection and scholarly curiosity, Art’s even recent history settles upon a critically safe but oh so narrow field. Leonard Rosoman, one of the artists whose work I have selected for this show, died only six years ago. “Where does he fit in”, asked a young art-professional in the audience at a recent talk on Modern British Art, “with the artists we’ve heard of?”

Some seven or eight years ago, Jeremy Isaacs, an old friend with a long and distinguished career in the broader art world to his credit, put to me an idea he had for an exhibition. It would celebrate the strength in depth, both of quality and kind, of British painting in the second half of the 20th century, yet without resorting to the usual roster of established names. Were it to do so, we thought, would rather miss the point. We recruited Andrew Lambirth to the project, and over the following years hawked our proposal around the country’s public galleries and institutions, in reasonable expectation of support, but without success. And what we came to realise at every turn was that, though the leading curators and directors we approached readily acknowledged the possibilities of our proposal in principle, and even perhaps its need, without those usual suspects on board to reassure them, their curatorial interest quite failed them. As one of the most distinguished of them said to Jeremy, “it would be an exhibition the public would love, and my curators would hate.” In other words, Public Servants 1: the Public 0.

Earlier this year, a much-vaunted exhibition at the old Tate on Millbank unwittingly made the very point with self-damning clarity. ‘All Too Human’, we were led to suppose, would tell the story of representational painting in England over the past hundred years or so. For me, as surely for so many, it was something to look forward to, for, goodness, what rich possibilities that promise held.

In the event, and with the vast resources of the Tate’s vaults at their disposal, the curators’ sense of adventure extended to the first 18 artists whom they’d heard of, along with a photographer, two foreign painters, and a Swiss sculptor. Of these, Freud, Bacon, Auerbach, Bomberg and the Indian painter, Souza, accounted for rather more than half the 96 works exhibited. Lucian Freud was allowed 17 paintings and a room to himself. Such, for them, was the story of painting in England in the 20th century.

So much is a matter of luck, of course, even for those so-familiar artists who made up that Tate show. Early success and an influential dealer are needed if teaching is to be entirely avoided – and most of them did their bit. The critic’s eye falls here, and not there: an absence abroad and a chance is missed: the bus is full that had a seat just a stop before. It’s no use being in the right place if it’s the wrong time. So it’s not the enviable and deserved success of a Freud or an Auerbach that is the issue, but only the wasteful, wilful neglect of so much else, there under our very eyes, and no less serious, relevant and beautiful.

For this show I have chosen pictures by 11 artists active at various times between the 1940s and the 2000s, which is the period more or less of my own growing interest and then active engagement with the visual arts, variously as schoolboy, art student, painter, teacher and critic. All but one of them I knew personally, some but slightly, some indeed as good friends. All were teachers at one time or another: all exhibited their work and enjoyed in their time properly professional reputations, though some more widely than others. All are represented in public collections, though not necessarily on regular display. Only on completing the list did I realise that eight of them were Royal Academicians. What that says of the Academy of their day, which once every year suffered its ritual trampling by the critics – as to some extent it still does – victim of faults more imagined than actually perceived, is obvious enough. The quality was always there, if one only troubled to look.

I took a conscious decision to stick to representational art, but not for any doctrinaire or polemical reason. I have no animus against abstract painting, and indeed have been guilty of it myself in certain phases in my own career as a painter. To select an exhibition of abstract work of the same strength and covering the same period would have been no less enjoyable, and no more difficult, than this exercise has been.

The human presence, landscape and still-life all figure in the show. The work conforms to no general style or school. I set myself no theme as such, other than that hinted at above – of looking to work I had long admired on several scores, at once technical and personal, yet of which we see

too little, at least in our public spaces in these critically lazy times. None of it is in any sense oldfashioned, for it is all of its time, which is to say innately contemporary. We have only to look at it to know at once, within a reasonable span, just when it was done. To suggest it is outmoded, and the times have moved on, is merely to miss its point. To be interested only in the new is a matter of choice, but to insist thereby that novelty of itself is a prime criterion of value and quality by which Art should be judged, is profoundly mistaken.

Yet each of these works is unmistakeably the artist’s own, for each hand and eye, each touch, each sensibility, is personal and unique. True originality looks after itself, so long as the artist trusts and remains true to the work itself, to which the artist’s only duty rests in trying, insofar as is ever possible, to get it right. And when people speak of Art’s duty to challenge and innovate and change our perception and experience of the world, I cross my fingers to keep out the Devil, for this is heresy. The artist has no duty whatsoever to preach or persuade, let alone tell the visitor to the work, of whatever kind it is or discipline it represents, what to think, or do. If the quality of a work of art rests on any message it might carry, then every Crucifixion, every Mars & Venus, would be as profound or engaging as the next. For, no matter how worthy, the message is always to a degree a limitation to the work, reducing its scope from the universal, if only in potential, to the specific.

Narrative may set a scene, but to point a moral spells death to the imagination, and so death to Art. The irony is that within its own formal and imaginative terms, whether grand or modest, the more accomplished the work and the more we are left then to make of it what we will, the more powerfully it will speak to us, if only in whisper, and ambiguously at that. We can wonder forever at what Shakespeare meant in his every unblotted line, or Mozart by every note, or Rembrandt by every stroke of the brush: but there is never an answer, only an intuitive, felt response. These are deep waters, Watson.

The eleven artists in my selection cover in their work a wide but far from full range within the broad field of the representational painting of the time – the portrait and the figure (Blamey: Cooke; Greenham: Rosoman: Fitton: Ward); the imagined or contrived composition (Fitton: Rosoman); social observation (Blamey: Fitton: Rosoman); still-life (Brooker: Holly: Greenham: Le Grice: Ward); landscape (Coker: Lee: Greenham: Holly: Fitton: Cooke); domestic interior (Cooke: Rosoman: Lee).

Yet within this apparent community of interests and crossings-over, now here, now there, the formal differences between them are far clearer than any shared interest or subject-matter: they combine to form no school nor group, share no programme, no agenda.

Not that I have chosen them to point such differences: but a tree is a tree, and what could be farther from Dick Lee’s carefully modulated, volumetric description of summer leafage, than Peter Coker’s robust expressionism? A pot is a pot, with here Jeremy Le Grice’s bold statements, so direct in the handling and rich in the paint: there the close, gently allusive tonality of Karn Holly, or William

Brooker’s monumental simplicity – yet each is no less true to itself, and to its subject, than the other.

And with the portraits too, what variety there is within the measured precision of Norman Blamey, Peter Greenham’s undemonstrative, very English impressionism, Jean Cooke with her close yet quirky scrutiny, and John Ward’s more fluent, open touch in the fine tradition of such as Orpen and Lavery.

Yet they all spring surprises, Blamey not least with two light preliminary studies for a mural set not, as might have been expected, on his more usual spiritual and devotional themes, but on two men setting up their model railway. His Daffodils too, so early a painting, seems at first so unexpected, yet his instinctive, ordered structure is already there, sitting quietly beneath the surface. And James Fitton, once so nearly the Royal Academy’s President but now not quite forgotten, may be best remembered for his affectionate social mockery, but as a landscape painter is a revelation. Leonard Rosoman, of course, is never anything but surprising, and always a delight, for the formal games and tricks he plays with space and form, yet with never a false stroke – as Basil Bunting said of Scarlatti: “never a crabbed turn or congested cadence, never a boast or a see-here.”

This, of course, is where he ‘fits in’. For, wide though the differences between these artists most clearly are, what brings them together is the unforced technical command that marks all their work, from which naturally and inevitably derives their expressive freedom, and not least their freedom to be always themselves. And it is far from co-incidental that all were at their several art-schools in times when instruction was still set within a tradition that went back, mutatis mutandis, to the Renaissance. It was a programme of study set from first to last upon mastering the disciplines of hand and eye. With its goal the practical command of means and materials closely combined with intelligent, critical observation of the visible world, drawing was at its heart, centred upon the routines of the life room, with the human figure its focus. And it shows.

William Packer July 2018.

William Packer is a painter and critic. He was born in 1940, and studied at Wimbledon School of Art. He was art critic of The Financial Times from 1974 until 2004, and continues to write freelance. He has published several books, curated several exhibitions, taught widely in art schools, and sat on countless art-institutional boards and committees.

He always shows his own work at every opportunity – his latest one-man exhibition, the 7th with the Piers Feetham Gallery, took place earlier this year.

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Catalogue NORMAN BLAMEY RA (1914-2000)

1. Time like an Ever-rolling Stream, 1992, oil on panel, signed lower right, 64 1/2 x 33 inches Provenance: Collection of the Artist Private Collection, UK Exhibited: ‘Summer Exhibition’, Royal Academy, London, 1992, no. 1119 Norwich Gallery, travelling to Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, and Fine Art Society, London, 1992-93 ‘Double Vision: Norman Blamey/Leonard Rosoman’, Fine Art Society, London, 1996 2. Study of a Young Man, oil on board, 21 x 17 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 3. Daffodils, c. 1940s, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 4. Study no.1 for Model Railway, watercolour and pencil, 7 1/2 x 13 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 5. Two Figures: Study for a Mural (Model Railway), watercolour and pencil, 10 x 13 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 6. Study of a Saint, pencil on paper, 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist

WILLIAM BROOKER ARA (1918-1983) 7. Agamemnon, 1965, oil on canvas, signed, titled, and dated verso, 33 x 36 inches Provenance: Arthur Tooth & Sons, London 8. The Rose, 1979, pencil on paper, initialled and dated lower right, 19 x 18 inches Provenance: Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd, London

PETER COKER RA (1926-2004)

9. Étretat, 1955, charcoal on paper, inscribed lower left ‘Etretat 55’, 15 x 22 inches Provenance: The Artist Exhibited: ‘Peter Coker: Mind and Matter’, Piano Nobile, London, 5 April - 13 May 2017, ex. cat.

10. Ystrad, Rhondda, 1952, gouache on paper, titled and signed lower right ‘S. Wales April 12th 52 Ystrad Rhondda’, 14 3/4 x 21 3/4 inches Provenance: Private Collection, UK Exhibited: ‘Exhibition of Contemporary Watercolours’, The Piccadilly Gallery, London, 1954, no. 11 ‘Peter Coker: Mind and Matter’, Piano Nobile, London, 5 April - 13 May 2017, cat. no. 2, col. ill. p. 17 Literature: Wootton, David, with contributions by John Russell Taylor and Richard Humphreys, Peter Coker RA. Peter Coker RA. London: Chris Beetles Ltd, 2002. cat. rais. no. 25, p. 117

11. Forêt de Landévennec, c. 1986, oil on canvas, signed lower right ‘Peter Coker’, 36 x 48 inches Provenance: Mr and Mrs Christopher Dunn Exhibited: ‘Summer Exhibition’, Royal Academy, London, 1986, no. 529 ‘Classically British, The Enduring Appeal of English Painting’, Ruthven Gallery, Lancaster, Ohio, 1989 ‘Peter Coker: Mind and Matter’, Piano Nobile, London, 5 April - 13 May 2017, cat. no. 22, col. ill. p. 59 Literature: Wootton, David, with contributions by John Russell Taylor and Richard Humphreys, Peter Coker RA. Peter Coker RA. London: Chris Beetles Ltd, 2002. cat. rais. no. 497, p. 137, col. ill., p. 137 12. Tree I, c. 1957, charcoal and conté on paper, signed lower right ‘Peter Coker’, inscribed verso ‘COKER 18 AUG’, 21 1/2 x 29 1/4 inches Provenance: Zwemmer Gallery (label verso) Mrs J Lloyd, 26 November 1959 (label verso) Private Collection, UK Exhibited: ‘Peter Coker’, Zwemmer Gallery, London, 1959, no.15 ‘Peter Coker: Mind and Matter’, Piano Nobile, London, 5 April - 13 May 2017, cat. no. 6, col. ill. p. 27

13. Mending Salmon Nets, NW Scotland, 1988, oil on canvas, signed with initials, signed and dated 1988 verso, 24 x 30 inches Literature: Wootton, David, with contributions by John Russell Taylor and Richard Humphreys, Peter Coker RA. Peter Coker RA. London: Chris Beetles Ltd, 2002. cat. rais. no. 548, p. 104 Exhibited: ‘Peter Coker RA. Oils and Drawings’, Flying Colours Gallery, Edinburgh, December 1990, no. 5, as ‘Mending Nets, Achiltibuie’ ‘An Exhibition of Leading 20th Century Artists’, Whittington Fine Art, Old Amersham, 1997 ‘Peter Coker RA’, Chris Beetles Gallery, London, October 2002, no. 96 ‘Peter Coker RA: the Studio Sale’, Chris Beetles Gallery, London, 3-28 October 2017, no. 96 14. Gendarme at the Châtelet, 2002, oil and charcoal on paper, signed with initials, signed, inscribed with title, and dated ‘April 2002’ on backboard, 19 x 24 inches Exhibited: ‘Peter Coker RA’, Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, 2003, no. 26 ‘Peter Coker RA: The Studio Sale’, Chris Beetles Gallery, London, 3-28 October 2017, no. 233

JEAN COOKE RA (1927-2008) 15. Self-Portrait, 1949, oil on canvas, signed and dated, “Jean Bratby Self Portrait Late 1949 blackheath Property of the artist not to be sold”, 14 1/8 x 11 1/8 inches 16. Springtime through the Window (46), c. 1980s, oil on canvas, signed lower left ‘Jean Cooke’, 28 1/2 x 23 1/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist Exhibited: ‘Summer Exhibition’, Royal Academy, London, unknown date and number ‘Delight in the Thing Seen’, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, 24 May – 10 September 2017 17. Seated Boy in Black, c. 1980s, oil on board, 59 x 23 1/2 inches Exhibited: ‘Jean Cooke: a reputation reassessed’, Piano Nobile, London, 2007 (19) 18. Wendy in the Studio I, c. 2003, oil on canvas, signed lower left ‘Jean Cooke’, 48 x 24 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist Exhibited: ‘Summer Exhibition’, Royal Academy, London, 2003, no.1

19. Wendy in the Studio II, c. 2003, oil on canvas, signed lower left ‘Jean Cooke’ 48 x 24 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist Exhibited: ‘Summer Exhibition’, Royal Academy, London, 2003, no.2 20. Up the Road and Pigeon Die, oil on canvas, 40 x 20 inches Exhibited: ‘Delight in the Thing Seen’, Jerwood Galllery, Hastings, 24 May – 10 September 2017

JAMES FITTON RA (1899-1982) 21. Our Feathered Friends, c. 1970, oil on board, 30 x 25 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist Exhibited: ‘James Fitton RA: a very English Painter’, Crane Kalman Gallery, London, November 2004 – January 2005, colour ill.

22. The Beach, c. 1950, oil on hard board, 27 1/4 x 36 inches Exhibited: ‘Against the Trend’, Crane Kalman Gallery, London, May – Jun 2003, no 26, colour ill.

‘James Fitton R.A.: A Very English Painter’, Crane Kalman Gallery, London, Nov 2004 – Jan 2005 23. Promenade, c. 1936, oil on board, 36 1/4 x 48 inches Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, 1975, no. 648 24. The Boating Lake, oil on board, 28 x 33 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist

PETER GREENHAM RA (1909-1992)

25. Portrait of Kate, oil on canvas, 29 x 24 3/4 inches 26. Port Meadow, oil on board, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

JEREMY LE GRICE (1936-2012)

27. Alton Barnes White Horse, 2000, oil on board, 18 x 23 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 28. Alton Barnes White Horse, 2001, oil on board, 21 3/4 x 33 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 29. Two Jugs, 1962, oil on board, 18 1/2 x 24 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 30. Still Life II, 1962, oil on board, 18 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 31. John & Malcolm (Still Life), 1962, oil on board, 12 x 16 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 32. Lyn’s Studio, Well Head, 1980, oil on board, 14 x 19 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 33. Way Through, 1978, oil on board, 12 x 17 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist

KARN HOLLY NEAC (1940-2014)

34. Table Top, oil on panel, signed with monogram lower right ‘KH’, 17 1/2 x 21 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Cassian de Vere Cole Fine Art Exhibited: ‘New English Art Club Annual Exhibition’, The Mall Galleries, London, 2013 35. As It Should Be, oil on board, signed with monogram lower right ‘KH’, 17 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Cassian de Vere Cole Fine Art Exhibited: ‘New English Art Club Annual Exhibition’, The Mall Galleries, London, 2013

36. Palazzo (Projection 3), oil and charcoal on paper, signed and inscribed lower right ‘Karn Holly Group 9’, 16 2/3 x 18 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Cassian de Vere Cole Fine Art Exhibited: ‘New English Art Club Annual Exhibition’, The Mall Galleries, London, 2010 37. Rainy Day, Hill Drawing, charcoal on paper, signed with initials lower centre ‘KH’, 19 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Cassian de Vere Cole Fine Art 38. Stony Ground, charcoal, conté, white gouache and wash on paper, signed with initials lower right ‘KH’, 14 4/5 x 11 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Cassian de Vere Cole Fine Art 39. Shore Rocks, charcoal on paper, signed lower centre ‘Karn Holly’, 23 x 27 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Cassian de Vere Cole Fine Art

DICK LEE (1923-2001)

40. The Dacha, Ingleville, oil on canvas, 22 x 29 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 41. The Orange Roof, Ingleville, oil on canvas, 21 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 42. Path near Ingleville (Trees, Summer), oil on canvas, 19 1/2 x 15 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 43. Mr Blondel’s Vegetable Garden: Ingleville, oil on canvas, 15 1/2 x 24 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 44. Ingleville, gouache on paper, 11 3/4 x 12 1/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist

45. Gillian Practising, gouache on paper, 12 1/2 x 9 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 46. Fakenham Garden, gouache on paper, 13 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 47. Back Garden, Fakenham, watercolour, 10 1/4 x 17 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist

LEONARD ROSOMAN RA (1913-2012) 48. Figure in a Walled Garden, c. 1954, oil on canvas, signed, inscribed with title on label on frame verso, 30 x 40 inches Exhibited: ‘Critic’s Choice 1955 – selection by Eric Newton. Works by Living British Artists’, Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, 14 September - 8 October 1955 London Group, RBA Galleries, 1956, no. 304 ‘Anthony Green RA: Among Royal Academy Artists and Friends’, Chris Beetles Gallery, London, May-August 2018, no. 11 49. Self Portrait, 2005, acrylic on paper, 14 x 11 1/2 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 50. QEII – The Deck Structure, 1990, gouache on paper, 17 1/2 x 24 3/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist 51. Otto Overbeck in his Garden, c.1990s, watercolour on paper, 20 x 19 3/4 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist Exhibited: ‘Summer Show’, Royal Academy, London, 1995 52. Norman Blamey with “Stephen and Corbels”, acrylic on paper, 10 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches Provenance: Private Collection, UK

53. Portrait of James Scott, acrylic on paper, 25 x 37 inches Provenance: Private Collection, UK

JOHN WARD RA (1917-2007)

54. Ann, oil on canvas, inscribed ‘To Bill & Adeline from A[lison] & J[ohn] 1958-9!’, 23 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches Information: Bill Gaskell was the artist’s agent at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in the late ‘50s, and secured Ward work for Shell, Guinness, and for the murals at the church in Challock in 1956. Ann was their daughter.

55. Lucy, 1968, oil on canvas, signed and dated ‘68, 30 x 20 inches Provenance: By descent within the family of the sitter Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1969, no 31 56. Postcard & Flower, 1995, watercolour, pencil, and crayon, signed and dated 1995, inscribed verso, 8 1/4 x 6 inches 57. Postcard & Paintbox, 1994, pastel, signed and dated 94, 7 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches Literature: Paintings of John Ward, p. 65 58. Girl with Doves, 1994, watercolour and pencil, signed and dated 94, 9 x 10 1/2 inches 59. Flowers in a Vase, 1970, watercolour, signed and dated 1970, 14 x 10 inches

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