Gorky
Since I wrote on Gorky yesterday, I’ve read Laura Cumming’s review of the exhibition and I think I was a bit sniffy about it – under the evil influence of Brian Sewell, no doubt. Maybe I missed the radiance a bit; if de Kooning thought he was the business, who am I to be critical? And he must have been the only painter in the USA doing this stuff in the early 40’s, so the importance of the link with European abstraction…
Van Doesburg
Got to visit this again, and as always, there was stuff that impressed 2nd time round that I’d barely noticed the first: Huszar’s “Composition with Female Figure”; a fantastic Schwitters with one of those long titles full of numbers – it began with “Merz”; the paintings of Bortnyik, Maes and El Lissitsky that all used perspective, a rarity in this exhibition; and a Futurist machine picture in black, white and red by Victor Servranckx, who gets 2nd prize for great name, after Vantongerloo. I was puzzled by Jean Gorin’s “No.3 emanating from the equilateral triangle” – couldn’t see a triangle for the life of me. I presume it was implied. Cesar Domela had three lovely pictures, one a tilted square with corners coloured and finally VD himself, “Simultaneous Counter Composition”, in which the coloured squares (tilted of course) appear to be sliding apart under a thin black frame.
Richard Hamilton
Interview with Rachel Cooke, in which he claims that a teacher at the Royal Academy described Picasso et al as “a load of fucking dagoes!” The art schools of the 40’s and 50’s sound like a nightmare; I remember reading that Terry Frost once spent 6 weeks on a painting without a comment from his teacher. When Frost felt he was finished and asked for a comment, he was told, “If I were you, I’d scrape it all off and start again.”
Painting
Going two ways at the moment; doing Mondrian- style stuff freehand, so its messy (childish, but even messed up, it looks OK) – and flinging paint on flat canvas and spreading it with the edge of a postcard. Really messy.
Listening to” That’ll be the Day”, Buddy Holly and the Crickets (of course):
“When Cupid shot his dart, he shot it at your heart,
So if we ever part then I’ll leave you..”
For decades, I thought it was “When Cupid Charlie starts…”: again, makes no sense, but I still prefer it.
Blackpaint
15.02.10
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