ART STORM

Evening Star, Issue 25674, 24 December 1945, Page 6

ART STORM

FRENCH PAINTINGS IN LONDON CRITICS UP IN ARMS (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.) (Rec. 9 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 23. Londoners are having an argument. It has nothing to do with the monetary loan, the atomic bomb, Indonesia, or the Government. It is about art. And the cause of the argument is an exhibition of paintings by Matisse and Picasso, two French artists, at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is the pictures by Picasso in particular which have roused dissension. Probably the most direct criticism was made by two children who saw the exhibition with their parents. They said: “ There is no truth in the paintings. Why are their eyes, ears, and noses not in their fight places? ” It is a point of view with which the average person agrees, since it appears that some of the paintings were drawn by a blindfolded man. Some people, of course, admire this type of work, but several leading artists, including the president of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mr George Harcourt, said that they are protesting to . the British Council, which is sponsoring the exhibition. They declare the pictures to be degrading and demoralising, and that the Government, in lending space, is subsidising a degenerate form of “ art.” Some of the most pungent criticisms came from Mr Harcourt. He thought that the “ Government building could have been put to better use,” and added : “ This sort of thing is not helpful to anyone, but worse than that it may cause great harm. I should definitely not advise young people to go there to Judge what is art. They might go there to judge what isn’t.” Mr Frank Salisbury, R. 1., considered it a disaster that the British Council should have allowed the exhibition, and declared: “ It is degrading and demoralising. It seems to me to be a tragedy to see these young people being mesmerised by something that they do not understand. lam making a formal protest to the British Council and I think the authorities of the Victoria and Albex-t Museum should protest also.”

The newspapers have been publishing columns of letters on the exhibition.

Meanwhile, in Paris, M. Picasso’s amused detachment has been slightly ruffled by tl.e British technique of asking “ average citizens ” to criticise his pictures. “His art is . above their understanding,” said his secretary. “ He is a Communist, but that does not mean he thinks a grocer or a dressmaker sufficiently educated to appreciate his works.”

Tn 30 years no exhibition has caused such a sensation as this, to winch nearly 00,000 persons have paid a visit in a fortnight. The people go to gaze or gape. Attendants of the museum have never seen anything like the show or the audiences in all their experience. Thirty thousand people in two weeks paid £750 for 6d catalogues, and much more than that has been spent by those purchasing photographs and albums of the exhibition.