As part of its commendable effort to widen its scope of influence and serve the community as a vital educational institution, the Laguna Beach Art Association has used its Entresol gallery to present an exhibition from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The show, “Elements of Modern Art,” circulated by the American Federation of Arts, is selected and arranged to present contemporary art expression to the lay public in meaningful terms. A bulletin prepared by Thomas M. Messer is available. In it and in the statements accompanying the exhibition, the elements of representation, expression, decoration, construction and fantasy are isolated for closer study in a well-chosen sampling of works from the Guggenheim collection. Although “addressed to museum visitors who find themselves unprepared for a confrontation with the new language of contemporary art,” the more sophisticated viewer can find equal enjoyment in the selections that reflect the quality of the museum collection. The public is first introduced to a 1942 Still Life by Georges Braque which, though in restricted color tonalities, has the freshness and vitality of an oil sketch. Then there is Derain’s Portrait of a Young Man (ca 1913) showing the influence of both Cézanne and Cubism, and a rather unusual representational Chagall portrait of the Artist’s Sister from 1910. An exciting charcoal drawing by Ernst Barlach, Woman Killing a Horse (1912) is the best of the Expressionist group that includes Beckmann, Kirchner and Marc among others. The sculptural simplicity of a pencil drawing, Figure, by Etienne Hajdu and the clean construction of Space Modulator by Maholy-Nagy, a 1945 oil on incised plexiglass work, are both refreshing. Always rewarding is Paul Klee. Although the thirty-six pieces shown are not major works in most instances, they nevertheless are of top quality.
––Constance Perkins
