These paintings depend for their interest on the tensions inherent in a space divided into a number of slightly out-of-whack rectangles. The colors are generally elegant dark browns, blacks and greys, but the pictures fall short of elegance due primarily to what appears to be a quite naive concept of edge and paint application. These pictures seem to be an attempt to work out of the manner of abstract painting which dominated the past decade, but Barletta has yet to accomplish his aim.
—Don Factor
Francis Bacon, “Study for Portrait II,” 1956. Courtesy, Marlborough Gallery.
December 1962/January 1963
VOL. 1, NO. 7
