EXHIBITION IN EUROPE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25082, 14 January 1947, Page 3

EXHIBITION IN EUROPE

BRITISH ARTISTS’ PAINTINGS

THEATRE COMPANY TOURS HOLLAND

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, January 4. In these days of general criticism of Britain and things British on the Continent, it is heartening to hear of the good work and fine results being achieved abroad by' the British Council. In the last few months an exhibition of paintings by British artists has been touring Europe under the council’s auspices with great success, while the English Art Theatre, also sponsored by the council, is raising British artistic prestige to new heights. Mr John Rothenstein, direct.or of the Tate Gallery, has just left for Rome to prepare for the opening there on January 11 of the art exhibition, which has already been seen by millions in eight Continental capitals. He has just returned from Warsaw, where, ii) spite of little official encouragement, the paintings aroused immense interest. Warsaw’s National Museum is one of the few great public buildings there to survive the war, and for a month the show has been attracting Poles—and Russians—at the rate of more than 3000 a day. After a month in Rome’s Gallery of Modern Art this British Council exhibition will probably close, although by all accounts the tour could continue indefinitely. Few exhibitions of this kind can have been seen by so many, and nothing has done more to increase Continental appreciation of British painting. Queues before Dawn y The English Art Theatre’s production pf “Hamlet” at The Hague broke all records for the theatre. The Dutch people, with strong memories of Jack Hawkins’s performance as Othello, were determined not to miss Alec Clunes as the Prince of Denmark. Sixteen degrees of frost in The Hague did not prevent the Dutch from queueing at the Royal Theatre at 3 o’clock in the moring, clad in fur capes and velvet ear-muffs, to reserve seats for “Hamlet.” All seats for the season were sold before dawn.

This British Council-subsidised company has played all over Holland—in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, and Rotterdam —and has met with a triumphant reception everywhere. To Fay Compton, the leading lady, the Dutch have said it with flowers. The male leads, Messrs Hawkins and Clunes, have been somewhat startled by the floral wreaths and bouquets which Holland has rained upon them also. The Dutch see no reason, apparently, why floral tributes should be reserved exclusively for women.