Abstraction or action painting as a technique in itself no longer necessarily equals “art.” In Pollock or de Kooning, artists that cannot be pinned down to either the figurative or abstract camp, we have two giant minds whose separate daring explorations have added new dimensions to our existence. It is this then, that is both the meaning and the content of their work. The division of art into figurative and non-figurative is a trap which conceals the essential . . . the means become more important than the content.

Julius Wasserstein falls into a similar trap. He is an action painter “par

An exhibition of small paintings by Wayne Thiebaud (of bakery fame), Peter Shoemaker, Gene Viacrucis, (a veritable acrobat of styles), Ralph Johnson, Gloria Brown and Nepote.

—John Coplans

It is refreshing to walk into a small gallery and find work of a surprisingly high standard for hire.

—John Coplans

First showing in the States of a young painter who lives in Scandanavia. Chicly framed, academically painted, slick dream montage images. Birds, heads, eyes and nudes superimposed, sentimental drawing. Visually naive work.

—John Coplans

This reviewer cannot muster any enthusiasm for these neat, dry, vaguely Surrealistic pictures which don’t come to a point of aesthetic focus, a point of communication.

—Arthur Bloomfield

A sensitive artist, at his best here in delicate, quietly whimsical drawings, and less good in some paintings which have taste and promise but don’t always jell into very decisive aesthetic experiences. One’s eager to see the next Boyle show.

—Arthur Bloomfield

Big, dynamic, strong-angled, squiggly, close ups of the Midwestern farm scene. This is a fresh view, and a virtuoso talent.

—Arthur Bloomfield

This is the fun show of the month, at least on this reviewer’s beat. An initial “So what” to the bright colors and the general air of primitivism gives way to appreciation for the visual punning—not in a class with Roy DeForest but there nevertheless and worth investigating. This is contrived innocence and irreverence involving witch doctors, native girls and Lord knows what all. Ramley should bear watching.

—Arthur Bloomfield

This is the fun show of the month, at least on this reviewer’s beat. An initial “So what” to the bright colors and the general air of primitivism gives way to appreciation for the visual punning—not in a class with Roy DeForest but there nevertheless and worth investigating. This is contrived innocence and irreverence involving witch doctors, native girls and Lord knows what all. Ramley should bear watching.

—Arthur Bloomfield

Safford certainly knows how to turn out Abstract Expressionistic paintings which are beautifully colored, well organized and good to look at. But a lack of inner excitement keeps them in the class of the glorified exercise. They miss the buoyancy, vibrancy, and grandness of statement one expects.

—Arthur Bloomfield

It’s sad to see Jan Hillcourt, one of the better painters on the low-budget commercial circuit, overpowered by such clichés of that circuit as city rooftops and nests of sails. The urge to rigid blocking of composition might have been considerably repressed. In any case, there was one bit of salvage: a lovely little picture called Coastline.

—Arthur Bloomfield

Linger over these Sintons: there’s a great deal going on in them, and they add up to wonderfully productive gardens of flowering color. For me, paintings like Lake Tahoe and Green House are more successful than Victorian Interior, possibly because of their intriguing central lighting and the thrust—easy-going but assertive—of the many snatches of design which form the whole.

Moss’ sculpture is uneven. When there’s breadth to his work, witness that grand orange “propeller,” or wit, as in Don Quixote, with its face out of The Wind in the Willows, or plaintiveness, demonstrated by a cow sticking

Gronborg, a graduate student of the Art Department at the University of California at Berkeley exhibits a number of cast bronzes and carved wooden sculptures. The bronzes, no doubt technically adequate, display a paucity of thought and feeling. Gronborg appears happier in wood. A Scandinavian, he creates large toy like images of heavy dark adzed timber, with rusted chains, nails and iron bands discreetly attached, reminiscent of the old timber forms of construction of his native country. His whimsical images, three holed stocks, skulls, etc. lack plastic wit.

—John Coplans

The paintings of this show are quite wild and entertaining, if not what you could call first rate in visual interest. The southern California artist’s bronzes are another story—and one of more quality. Here the stark, clever and macabre give way to something simple and strong. Strombotne catches his figures in tensed, body-glorifying positions, ready to spring or fight their way out of a motionless state. The paintings stress the satirical and the horrific: they are not so much aesthetically satisfying as conversation pieces. I certainly wouldn’t want to condemn pictures like Search for Unamericans

Hot on the heels of the Museum of Modern Art “assemblage” exhibition, recently shown at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Shapiro, better known as an intelligent and sensitive printmaker, exhibits a number of “assemblages” (his titling).

They consist in the main of those items of women’s underclothing which are heavily advertised with the appropriate chi-chi drawings in mass circulation media: brassieres, girdles, etc., juxtaposed against crushed tins, cut out circular lids of tins, string, shoe soles, etc. But unlike Bruce Connor, who uses sexual and erotic iconography for its capacity of direct

Watch out! Arthur Okamura is going through an exceptionally productive period, and this always intriguing artist is marching ahead toward greater heights. He certainly reaches them in Towards Olema, a large picture which puts Okamura closer than ever to the deep, sweeping brand of landscape for which Walter Snelgrove is especially well-known. Okamura, of course, is interested in a more refined, less immediate approach, but the strong horizontals, diagonals, and darkly romantic spaciousness provide points in common.

The Feingarten show also reveals a renewed interest in the figure, witness the

What is enjoyable about Haley’s work is his deep concern for painting rather than the search for a brand image. His paintings reflect a deliberate and classical temperament in conflict with the expressionist style he has adopted. A sound painter, he can never sufficiently relax his guard to encourage what might be described as the necessary series of coincidences to free his work from the circumspect mark. Like Guston, he appears to be obsessed with certain ideas of Mondrian in organizing his pictures. In the earlier paintings small brush marks are piled hesitantly, touch by touch, to form the

In comparison with the usual highly technical and slick photography with which we are used to being barraged by in all printed media, here is the work of a man with a poet’s eye. Intensely aware of human suffering, his photographs, skillfully composed, are without sentimentality. Quietly and with care they isolate and record a moment of penetrating vision.

—John Coplans

Among the thousands of diverse activities that have existed in the world, the arts seem to have attracted more than their fair share of tragic personalities, such as Soutine or Tchaikovsky or Van Gogh. That in today’s bourgeois world there is at least one such figure roaming the streets of New York is almost absurdly incredible.

Probst, through delusion, or however these things work, is such an artist. An avowed follower of Rembrandt, painter of Christs, the man is necessarily obsessed, even tortured, with himself.

Probst’s expressionist paintings are homages to Probst and maybe that’s the only

It is depressing to see an important Museum’s walls plastered with such obvious trivia, tripe and blatent cookery . . . fakes of Pollock, Tapies, Braque, Giacometti, Burri, etc. With students work wallowing in unabsorbed influences such as “my reflections in a window” of Robert Bechtle—crammed with derivations from Giacometti and Bacon via Oliviera; with a slice of Diebenkorn thrown in. With deliberate and obvious jokes such as Adventure by Yloh Wok, (Holy Kow). Out of the one hundred and twelve works exhibited an occasional painting shines through such as One of the Insecta by Sophie Saras.

But

This exhibition is noteworthy, not for its content, but its omissions. It consists of one hundred drawings selected by Gordon Washburn during his perambulations around the world to pick the last Carnegie International.

Statistically, at any rate, the British are the topnotch draughtsmen. They are represented by eighteen items, with the Japanese as close runners up with fourteen items. Evidently American artists don’t draw, or if they do, they are not worthy of inclusion, other than the two items by Keonig and Masurorsky.

The overwhelmingly large British selection amply demonstrates the organizational

Rich in variety in everything from tapestries to teapots, the Chinese Art Treasures from the National Palace and the Central Museums of China have arrived at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, to make their last public appearance in the United States before returning to Taiwan. Included are sanctified bronze vessels derived from lowly kitchen utensils used in ancient Chinese homes, priceless pottery and art objects, and some of the most famous paintings surviving from the Tang, Five Dynasties, Sung, Yuan and Ming Dynasties (618–1644 A.D.). These are the Chinese ming-chi, or “

Elegant, highly attractive paintings with much subtle motion in their handling of negative space, and beautiful modulations of close color harmonies.

—Arthur Bloomfield

These landscapes of Brenner’s are the most exasperating kind of painting to have to look at, let alone review. So happily middle of the road, without any excitement, plastic adventure or committal.

—John Coplans

In the theatrical world, mimicry and impersonation, is not only legitimate, but if well done is applauded. In the world of art, however, it is inadmissible. Barry Hall, a young painter, demonstrates his ability to feign the color, form and imagery of Alan Davie, but only those ignorant of Davie’s work would be deceived. He also exhibits a number of small sculptures after Eduardo Paolozzi.

—John Coplans