Joan Hugo

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  print March 1964

  I. H. Prinzmetal

  The work of Prinzmetal seems to pose the problem, common to many painters, of what to paint after one has learned how to paint. The work is competent enough, but uncommunicative and Prinzmetal’s interest seems to wander. The painter’s eye is reflective, but it is not enough simply to mirror surroundings—he must make them seem important or make his way of seeing important. In short, one must be convinced that there is a reason for his painting. The work here is good enough so that one wishes it were better.

  —Joan Hugo

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  print March 1964

  James Pinto

  Luminous, lyric landscapes done over the past several years reveal a preoccupation with natural forces and moods. The works tend toward an oversimplification, perhaps because shapes are neatly arranged along a horizon, with little concern for intervening space. Approaching Storm, in which the shapes are more loosely arranged, is more successful. The still lifes are more dynamic, the point of view is different, perhaps because the space is enclosed. Here, as in the drawings, the concern is for surface rather than form.

  —Joan Hugo

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  print July 1963

  Group Show

  A be­wildering show of paintings in a recently opened gallery in Hollywood, bewilder­ing because of the uneven quality of the work and a certain earnest desire to express ideas not always clearly de­fined. The artists exhibiting are, in order: Alma, whose quasi-naive paint­ings recall folk-painting on glass or pottery; Alvarez, a non-objective painter who seems to lean heavily on Orphism and Pure Plastic Art; Bush, whose work resembles the aerial views it depends on; Lesly, a designer in the style of Atlan; Penny; Ryan; Bosco Tatich, a painter in the Expressionist mode with affinities for

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  print June 1963

  “Californians Collect Californians”

  The perennial problem facing the “non-professional” collector, i.e., the collector who is moved more by personal pleasure than by considera­tions of reputation, historical curiosity or wise investment, is that he feels obliged to “live with” the things he collects rather than simply store them conveniently. Paintings collected with these problems in mind tend toward an “Intimism” which is understandable; thus the paintings assembled here re­flect a certain caution on the part of the owners. Few, if any, could be con­sidered disquieting confrontations. Rather than confront, the paintings here

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  print June 1963

  Norman Weiner

  Com­petent, sometimes lively drawings and glassy paintings record Mr. Weiner’s recent trip to Europe and the Mediter­ranean. The paintings are curious, like enamels or varnished collages, and one feels he would be more at home solv­ing design problems. As for the draw­ings, they are in the current style of illustrated articles about trips to far-off places; they are the sort of thing which swelled the notebooks and diaries of well-educated travellers in the days be­fore the camera. Now that most people take pictures, it is refreshing to find someone who will make them––but they remain part of

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  print June 1963

  Nicolai Fechin

  It is becoming increasingly difficult to evaluate the work of some­one like Fechin, who worked with ap­parent disregard for the developments in art during his lifetime and seemed to pursue an already predictable direction. To dismiss the work as academic is really not fair, since academic refers only to the conservatism of a previous generation and may be superseded by new academicisms in time. Yet, for a man who was a contemporary of Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keefe, John Marin (to name some of the Americans with whom he was in contact during his years in Taos) and of Picasso and Ben­nard, to

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  print June 1963

  Robert Mullen

  Robert Mullen seems undecided about two basic sculptural possibilities––­whether to “occupy” or “enclose” space. The polished wooden sculptures tend toward the static monumentality of dol­men and occupy space as highly defined closed forms in spatial relationship with each other. The other sculpture encloses capsules of space more organically; shapes spring from a central core like spiral leaf-growth patterns or coral outcroppings, with much more emphasis on textural effect.

  While no sculptor is under any obli­gation to repeat himself (quite the con­trary) one feels that indecision leads to

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  print May 1963

  “Surrealists”

  “The art of painting, as I conceive of it, consists in representing through pictorial techniques the unforseen images that might appear to me at certain moments, whether my eyes are open or shut.”
  —René Magritte.
  

  It is these unforseen images which dominate a small but rewarding show at Rex Evans, which also includes work by some contemporary proponents of the unforseen: Phillip Curtis, Thomas Blackwell, Douglas McFadden, Allan Blizzard, Guido Biasi, and, especially interesting, Gerrie Gutman, whose doll-like, owlish women somehow recall the work of Leonor Fini. Two small “pebble-scrapes” by Yves

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  print May 1963

  Mary Beich Myers

  Little button-eyed girls in fields of posies; an homage to Renoir, perhaps, but one better rendered privately.

  —Joan Hugo

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  print April 1963

  Richard Whorf and Paul Jasmin

  Fortunately Richard Whorf, prominent in motion pictures, has taken the trouble to qualify himself as an amateur; it would be unfair to see his work in other terms. But showing in a commercial gallery, and, to judge by the little red stars, selling like hot cakes, his work bids to be taken seriously, although it doesn’t measure up to serious standards. Painfully derivative (Hopper, Wyeth), they reflect a nostalgia for the finite. Paul Jasmin takes an almost obsessive delight in patterns (checked, flowered cloth) and flat draped folds. He makes no attempt at modeling the figures; they are reduced

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  print April 1963

  Group Show

  Artists showing here are Vi Hornbrook, Joel Schiller, Karl Seethaler, Lugan, Ernst Halpern. Of these, only Schiller and Halpern seem to have notions of what painting is about.

  —Joan Hugo

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  print April 1963

  Ruth Osgood

  These paintings are accomplished but static, stylized, formal. The subjects she chooses to paint are not always appropriate to this style—the matador and bull, for example, come off badly. She is more successful with boats and harbors, subjects which lend themselves to a cold, analytical style.

  —Joan Hugo