print January 1964

James And Elizabeth Fuller

This little gallery dies this month with a lively showing of James Fuller’s paintings and Mrs. Elizabeth Fuller’s tapestries. Fourteen oils, the meat of the show, though varied and in some cases influenced, have a unity and vitality which speaks of the search and integrity of the artist. Two large works, A Mortal’s Altar and Phoebe Bust with Flowers, are Braqueish in their subtle earthy colors and still-life conception but nevertheless personal and well done. Two others, Blooming Cereus and Song of Blighted Flowers, are experiments in which closed forms trap warm colors and painted surfaces in

print September 1963

Thomas Cornell

This show of fifteen etchings from the series “Men of the French-Revolution,” eighteen pencil and wash drawings and sixteen paintings, is strong, honest, and undecorated.

The etchings, soon to be published in a limited edition by the Gehenna Press of Leanard and Esther Baskin, subtly range in style from two linear Ingres-like studies of the Baheuf Brothers to a Goyaesque Danton to a banger of a black-and-white Marat. This unique series is a stylistic and technical tour de force as well as an impressive study in characterization.

Of the figure and portrait drawings the sketches for the etching

print September 1963

Robert Thomas, Conway Pierson, Ann Perkoff

These investigative bronze castings exploit some of the possibilities of lost wax casting. In reinvestigating lost wax casting these two instructors at the University of California in Santa Barbara have built their own equipment and are doing their own casting. The exciting process has been recorded by the lucid, unaffected photographs of Ann Perkoff, and these in turn have been incorporated into the show.

Unfortunately, many of the pieces exhibit the disadvantages of new materials and new untempered freedoms. The fact that the word “piece” often seems more appropriate than “sculpture”

print September 1963

Wesley Johnson

Johnson, a young Ojai artist, exhibits twelve recent paintings which show a concern for color and action. Luckily, he has a natural feeling for paint and color, and the paintings come off. They are out-of-doors gay Ojai warm, and pleasing, but seem to be too much on the surface. There is a tendency to paint the same picture in different colors and in different paint qualities. “Spring 2,” for example, is “Spring 1” in more impasto, heavier lines, less wash areas and more pastel colors; “Winter Growth” is the same picture in greens and blues. There is a compositional device which probably

Jorgen Hansen