Askew watercolours

Press, 20 November 1987, Page 5

Askew watercolours

“Watercolours-Englisb Heritage” by Maurice Askew at the C.S.A. Gallery until November 22. Reviewed by Pat Unger.

Maurice Askew is a film-maker. He is also a cartoonist, a photographer, a painter and a recorder. He exhibits watercolours of an English heritage in the Print Room of the C.S.A. Gallery. Fragments of English history are expressed through stately homes and buildings, set in typical landscapes.

Many are still in existence because of preservation by the National Trust, the Heritage Society and by private owners. Askew refers to these works as “caprices” — not strictly factual records. Their modest size, their simplicity and their elegant line belie their formal knowledge and art reference. These picturesque, rural views have nothing to do with modern complexity. They have a freshness about them that has earned him the label “naive.” But the untutored, childlike appearance of his work is arrived at by an art expert-

ence that is sophisticated and theoretical. There is an almost geometric quality that verges on the “form follows functions” ideas of the 19305. There is a delicacy and refinement of line that is reminiscent of Japanese drawing. And of Paul Klee’s romantic representation of reality through orgahic shapes. Klee’s love of patterning is there, too. Images are pared down to essence. Cars, tents, people and prams are a cross between prototypes and cartoons. Stylised trees and fields of grass are lightly stated through stippling and stenciling. Plane is preserved by a single line. The great homes are described in an architectural shorthand. Landscape is fashioned by spaces that are as lonely as English taste (and composition) decrees.

These works are theoretically consistent They show skill in drawing. They are softened by the simplified use of watercolour. They also suggest that an Englishman’s castle is his landscape and that his finest hour is his history.