Robert Olmsted

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  print June 1962

  Fredric Hobbs

  The triptych is overpowering in its emotional intensity, in its relation to death and to antiquity. We have not felt such stimulation since viewing the masters. Hobbs is essentially a colorist and other considerations are kept subordinate so that the colors are free to relate their message. Colors meant to bear connotational freight are emphasized in the chiaroscuro manner by underpainting and glazing. Such glazed color creates its own image. The central blues, for instance, connote ancient time. The glowing oranges carry a spiritual hope. Color is further used to explore the very deep space in

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  print June 1962

  Misch Kohn

  The Achenbach Foundation at the Legion of Honor is justly proud to exhibit Misch Kohn. Among modern printmakers no name is as eminent. It has even been said that he is one of the few contemporaries whose work approaches Rembrandt and Goya. But in the Rembrandt and Goya prints the eye is taken through a sublime series of tonal values while Kohn is limited to three: white, medium gray and jet black. The masters display drafting hands of perfect discipline—each line is purposeful and intended, while in Kohn’s Tiger, Sleeping Soldier and Bull Fight the principal reliance is on the wood grain, on

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  print June 1962

  Jean-Marie Calmettes

  A man of superb talents, displaying a strange contrast between style and content. In Kneeling Nude and Still Life with Blue Jar his principal constructional device is a blinding flood of white paint, surrounded by dimly defined forms in low keyed colors. So much white demands considerable daring and skill to bring off well and Calmettes deserves a great deal of credit doing it. He achieves a superb illumination from within. But here the daring stops. There seems to be an artistic timidity, a retreat from significant statement. This is generally characteristic of the School of Paris painters.

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  print June 1962

  Ron Bosc, Gerald A. Wasserman

  The Quill Gallery specializes in very young artists, a most interesting spot in which to find fresh talent. For example, there is Ron Bosc and his Red Lady. A very valid approach to the figure. Bosc’s control of tonal value and brushwork directs the viewer’s eye up, through the varying background and body shades, to the culmination at the yellow-green head. Bosc is but 20. Red Lady is a very significant work for one so young.

  Gerald A. Wasserman is another case in point. A midwesterner trained in Chicago, Wasserman is essentially linear in his stylings. His Mediterranean travels introduced the

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  print June 1962

  Keith Boyle

  Boyle constructs and textures with plastic roofing tar which is then painted and glazed, producing warm, low-keyed colors. Pleasant landscapes within the abstract expressionist idiom. Ravello, seems Italian, probably the best in the show. Manchester, an explosive reaction to an industrial city. Off Shore, a Grecian landscape against a blue sea. All show fine color and a confidently controlled brush. Boyle is the best of the regulars at the Triangle, a new gallery with excellent ambitions but, for the most part, immature artists.

  —Robert Olmsted

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  print June 1962

  Jarvis Rockwell, Bruce Conner

  The Batman, San Francisco’s principal voice of Neo-Dadaism, has recently reopened under new management. Very little is changed; the walls still black, perhaps the worst color of all to enhance art works. The drawings of Rockwell and Conner, on the other hand, are very choice indeed. Both derive from surrealism. Rockwell is a master of minute detail within an overall plan. He does the cityscape which at first glance seems entirely normal and ordinary. On closer examination the city is rotten to the core. The attack on the metropolis is, by indirection, an exaltation of the individual. Conner

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  print June 1962

  Dick Hornaday

  Dick Hornaday is beginning to attain the full expressiveness of his subject matter—a single planed faceless crowd on a background plane. He uses the heads to throw a net of directional lines across the canvas, striving for a linear style which seems allied to the German expressionists. He exhibits not so much the German linearity, however, as a seemingly similar viewpoint on life. Hornaday, who took degrees at Iowa and Chicago, seems to share an emotional reserve and pessimism with other recent Iowans. It seems a matter of closeness to the soil, of practicality and of solidarity with the

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  print June 1962

  Jose Ramon Lerma

  One of the bay area’s more promising artists, now attaining a thoroughly valid and individual style. He maintains the abstract expressionist idiom but is turning more and more to the religious image, as in “Sacred Heart” and “First Crucifixion.” Lerma also shows a more painterly confidence than in the past. The colors have a richer glow, attained by an exceptionally thick and well worked surface.

  —Robert Olmsted

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  print June 1962

  June Felter

  Figures and still life in the New-figurative manner. Vivid colors, flung about in wild abandon. As is generally true of the New Figurative painters, Felter turns to the Post Impressionists for subject matter, particularly to Bonnard. But the current presentation of the human figure and the handling of interior space suffer greatly in this obvious comparison.

  —Robert Olmsted

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  print June 1962

  William Lang

  Mysticism with stylistic precision and relentless delight in small detail. A male clown and a dancer dressed in tutu work ratlike puppets on a clock face. I confess I don’t know what Lang is driving at but his individualism is admirable in this day of artistic eclecticism and pastiche.

  —Robert Olmsted

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  print June 1962

  Maggie Hazell

  Large abstract landscapes. San Francisco bay paintings are best, displaying good color sense. Decorative.

  —Robert Olmsted

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  print June 1962

  Akahshi Ooe

  A single, superb red relief painting, employing subtle tones and rock-like forms reflecting Japanese tradition. Makes us want to see more.

  —Robert Olmsted