print May 1965

Melvin Edwards

Edwards is represented in this one man exhibition by a sophisticated and highly urbane selection of sculpture. The overall impression conveyed by the exhibition is most impressive, and this first impression maintains itself upon revisits. In part it is the element of craftsmanship; one could even suppose that in this selection of Edwards’ sculpture, craftsmanship is not only a means, but to a considerable extent, it is the end. Perfection of workmanship and a full understanding of material has been united with the formal content of each work.

If one were, in a good art-historical fashion, to

architecture May 1965

Architecture and the New Vernacular

An idea, now treated by those in the know as highly old-fashioned, is that a distinction should always be made between architecture and buildings. As Gilbert Scott, the great 19th-century English Gothic Revivalist put it, “Architecture consists of the decoration of construction.” While such an assertion would only bring smiles from our current schools of architecture or from our professional architectural journals, this is a distinction which is still almost universally made on a popular level. To most people, that which is thought of as architectural in a typical project house, are shutters,

print January 1965

“George Washington Smith and The Spanish Colonial Revival”

If, during the 1920s, one were to thumb through a stack of home magazines or professional architectural journals, it would have been surprising not to have come across illustrations of the building of the Santa Barbara architect, George Washington Smith. In fact, by the end of the decade of the ’20s, his name had become synonymous with the Spanish Colonial revival movement.

The California pioneers of the “New Architecture,” Schindler, Neutra and later Ain, Harris, and Soriano had nothing but caustic comments to make about a movement which they felt had little to do with the ideals of their

print Summer 1964

Architecture in Los Angeles

THE PRESENT ARCHITECTURAL SCENE in southern California can, at best, be described as respectable, but dull. One end of the spectrum—that which may be thought of as popular or folk architecture—still brings forth unbelievably fantastic creations, ranging from the façadism of the suave “Hollywood regency” to the latest version of Islamic, Tahitian or Japanese architecture. At the other end are elegant, finely detailed structures, as fraudulent in their use of materials and expressive form as the current emaciated female Hollywood model. No matter how one may try to twist or turn the facts, Los

print Summer 1964

The UCSB Art Gallery

THE PRESENT ART GALLERY was opened to the public in 1959. Since that time, its exhibits have ranged over the entire field of the visual arts and, in time, from the pre-historic past to the present. Exhibitions have been initiated which have presented the ethnological art of Africa, Korean pottery of the Far East, European Renaissance and Baroque paintings and drawings as well as 20th-century European and American art and architecture.

The Gallery’s approach to its exhibitions program is a scholarly one. Each of its major exhibitions is under the general direction of specialists in the field, and

print October 1963

The Case Study Houses

SURPRISINGLY THE AMERICAN ARCHITECTURAL magazine most often found in the foreign architect’s office or School of Architecture is the California publication Arts & Architecture. In its pages the foreign architect and student is exposed to an array of buildings of a remarkably high degree of quality. (He is also exposed to the writings of two of America’s most gifted critics, Peter Yates, in music, and Dore Ashton, in painting and sculpture). The wide acceptance and influence of Arts & Architecture abroad has certainly been due to its view of architecture as an art, rather than as a vast business

print July 1963

“Decorative Arts of the 18th Century from California Collections”

The often expressed desire to experience the work of art within its own specific historic context is here realized in the fragmentary reconstruction of a series of individual 18th century interior spaces. Within the 9 stage-like settings are rooms representative of Italy, of France (Louis XIV, Louis XV, and the Classical Revival), England (Queen Anne and late 18th century) and one example from late 18th century America. It is particularly rewarding to see paintings by such figures as Van Dyck, Van de Velde, Constable and Gainsborough related to furniture and other decorative objects of their

print July 1963

Oliver Andrews

This sculpture well illustrates the classic repose and control which exists today, even within the confines of what we normally pigeon-hole as “junk sculpture.” Andrews rummages through the local junk pile of bolts, nuts, and sundry metal parts and then proceeds to compound them into an intensely unified statement––a statement which intriguingly forces us to lose sight of the sources of the individual parts. The general impression conveyed is that of sparse elegance which concentrates almost the whole of its attention on the esthetic problem of form to the exclusion of an avowed social comment

print July 1963

Ronald Garrigues

His work instantly reveals a deep and highly sensitive feeling for the quality of wood, its texture, grain and color. These are indeed tactile-enticing pieces which one desires to handle, and it is this simple feature which constitutes their major appeal. Regrettably Garrigues’ pieces do not indicate the same high quality of understanding of form. His curvilinear twisted shapes are watered down versions of the sculpture of the 1920s of Gabo. Even the most satisfactory of Garrigues’ examples, such as Metamorphoses seems somewhat slick and unconvincing as a total form. The materials and the

print May 1963

Hans Hofmann

An exhibition of 14 paintings and 3 drawings, dating from 1952 through 1962, gathered from California collections. The major impetus for the exhibition was a gift by the painter of one of his own works to the Santa Barbara Museum. Hofmann’s name is one that is constantly involved in any discussion of post World War II painting, and even though the exhibition is restricted in size and to a limited phase of the painter’s career, it is still an exciting and revealing experience which one hopes will be repeated and expanded in future showings of Hofmann’s work on the West Coast.

Clement Greenberg,

print May 1963

Donald Bear

Here is a wide selection of drawings dating from the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. The late Donald Bear is remembered by those who knew him as one of the West Coast’s most energetic and perceptive museum administrators (he was the founding-director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art). With a close sympathy and understanding of contemporary art, he was able to build the Santa Barbara Museum into one of the major museums of California. His success in this area of his activities has tended to hide the fact that he was also a painter whose works, in many cases, will stand solidly by those of his

print April 1963

The Art of Easter Island

NO SINGLE ISLAND in the vast Pacific has held such a fascination in the popular imagination as Easter Island. How its people were able to develop such a complex material culture on such a relatively small and isolated piece of land, which is the most remotely situated of the islands of the Pacific, has always appeared a tantalizing mystery. Here, 2300 miles from the coast of South America to the east, and 1200 miles from Pitcairn Island to the west, the aboriginal Easter Islanders erected their enormous stone statues, developed an impressive megolithic architecture, a system of writing, and a

David Gebhard