Oskar Fischinger is better known as a creator of abstract films than he is as a painter. This is probably as it should be for the paintings shown here owe their life to the awareness of optics, implied movement, flickering surface, and deep space. They are intellectually conceived and relate to the Bauhaus idea of an ordered universe. The works range from 1944 until the present without any recognizable change in pattern or philosophy. The new works are smaller and somewhat more relaxed; due, perhaps, more to age than to intention. The earlier works are often excellent. But, for the moment, all of this is beside the point. The point is that here, in Los Angeles, is a man who has devoted his life to the creative act, whose films have long been distributed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who in 1948 was awarded the “Grand Prix” at the Brussels International Art and Film Festival, and who has been allowed to rot in Los Angeles. Right now he is selling nice little temperas for sixty (60) dollars because he needs money. We all say it is getting better in this town; but somewhere inside we still smell bad.

—Henry T. Hopkins