EXHIBITION REVIEWS

73. Figuresin the TourEiffel restaurant, by Alvaro Guevara. c. 1918. 74. Rapeof theSabines, by Anthony Caro. 1985-86. Steel, rusted and varnished. 43.2 by 49.5 cm. (Exh. Michael Parkin Ltd.). 222.2 by 603.6 by 144.7 cm. (Exh. Waddington Galleries).

ings, for which she has always been best- London, Waddington Gallery & Industryfor the Franco-British Exhibition in known, show an intelligent absorption of Knoedler Gallery Paris. Caro's father remained implacably lessons learnt from Modigliani and Gaudier Anthony Caro opposed to his desire to pursue sculpture (as with Edward Wolfe); free-flowing, suc- as a profession; under family pressure, cinct, with an edge of wit and an ability Earlier this year, Anthony Caro exhibited Caro read engineering at Christ's College, to suggest volume through the simplest a group of small bronzes and drawings at Cambridge. Finally, he was able to take line. Her painting developed considerably Acquavella in New York; these were mod- up a place to study sculpture at the Royal under Fry's influence, an influence that elled and drawn directly from the figure - Academy Schools, in 1947. seems to have gone both ways. London the first time Caro had worked in this way Through his catalogue [1981] of as many scenes, portraits and still lifes are sober, since his student days. Caro's London of Caro's student works as he could identify, economical, low-toned and constructed dealers, John Kasmin and Leslie Wadding- Dieter Blume revealed how skilfully and with a water-tight emphasis on volume. ton, declined to show such conventionally how diligently Caro had absorbed what They are often in marked contrast to the figurative pieces here. But Kasmin has re- Wheeler and the Academicians had to offer ebullient drawings of the same period. It cently exhibited a group of Variationson an him. But, from 1951 to 1953, Caro worked is the works of these years that earn Nina Indian theme, delicately patinated bronze as an assistant to Henry Moore. At this Hamnett a footnote in modern English sculptures, consisting of intimately model- time Moore was making pieces such as painting and they were rightly to the fore in led forms displayed in complex, constructed the highly abstracted Recliningfigure, 1951, Michael Parkin's exhibition Nina Hamnett 'frames'. These were explicitly, if loosely, an example of which is now in the Arts and her circle (closed 12th November; at based upon an eleventh-century B.C. Council collection; later in the year, he the Hull University Collection to 5th Chandella period carving of flying female turned to more volumetric versions of the December).4 The 'and her circle' proved warriors. Waddington exhibited a group same theme. Moore was also assimilating to be almost limitless and works were in- of rather more familiar 'Table Pieces', and the influence of a visit to Greece which he cluded by the Omega artists, as well as three large constructed works, in rusted made in 1951; his serenely draped figures, Sickert, John, Cocteau, Minton, Colquhoun and varnished steel, Egyptian table, High with their vigorously rucked and modelled and Freud. A contemporary of Nina table, and Scamander(Fig.77); a fourth such clothing, confirmed his revaluation of the Hamnett was the Chilean Alvaro Guevara work, Rape of the Sabines (Fig.74), was in- classical tradition. Little has survived of and there was a typical restaurant scene stalled at the Economist Building (both Caro's own work from this time; but he had by him of c.1916 (Fig.73), very close in exhibitions to 25th October). was soon to react against Moore as he from his spirit to Hamnett's contemporaneous All these pieces seem certain to intensify against Wheeler. Caro emerged drawings (and depicting incidentally one the controversy which Caro's recent direc- formative years as an enthusiastic, if some- of her favoured haunts). This exuberant tions have caused among those who follow times lumpen, expressionistic modeller, exhibition and the generously-illustrated, his sculpture. For, in the 1960s, Caro was whose squelchy figures were cast, often well-researched biography might, one celebrated for what The Times called 'out- inelegantly, in bronze. hopes, help to recover much lost work by and-out originality'; and yet the traditional, All this changed again in 1959 when Nina Hamnett and raise, perhaps, her foot- even conventional, character of these recent Caro met Clement Greenberg; Caro went note to the page itself. Caro's can hardly be denied. The Indian to New York and became friendly with the RICHARD SHONE themesculptures, with their intricate pass- post-painterly abstractionists, including ages and, in one case, even gilded surfaces, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, have more in common with Alfred Gilbert and Jules Olitski. Greenberg also intro- and the 'New Sculpture' of the 1880s, than duced Caro to the welded metal sculptures with, say, the 'New Sculpture' of the 1980s. of David Smith. Caro's wife, Sheila Girling, But this is not the first time that Caro's has written that the effect of this visit was 'Sickert& Thanet.Extracts from Sickert's lectures way of working has appeared to undergo 'to call in question dependence on the con- edited by Paul Pelowski. Unpaginated, 3 b. & w. far-reaching changes. Caro was born in ventions of traditional culture, and open ills. 50 (Kent County Library, 1986), pence. 1924; as a young man, he spent much of the way to a more direct and free sculpture'. 2Edward Russell Wolfe. ByJohn Taylor. his school holidays in the studio of Charles On Caro's return to England, the following 3Nina Hamnett: queen of bohemia. By Denise Hooker. a academic he made hours, a 8 col. and b. & Wheeler, prominent sculptor, year, Twenty-four piece 288 pp. including pls. numerous w. which consists of three of ills. ?15. ISBN 0-09-466970-8. best known for his telamons, carved in situ, shaped planes (Constable), About the time cut steel. This work an- 4Nina Hamnett and her circle. Introduction by Denise at the Bank of England. roughly painted Caro's of new materials Hooker. Unpaginated, 9 b. & w. figs. (Michael Parkin Caro worked for him, Wheeler would have nounced adoption Fine Art Ltd., 1986). been carving his heroic figures of Art and and working methods; throughout the

916 Burlington Magazine is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Burlington Magazine ® www.jstor.org EXHIBITION REVIEWS

75. Variationon an Indian theme:I, by AnthonyCaro. 1984-86. Gildedand patinated bronze. 74.9by 74.9by 33 cm. (Exh.Knoedler Gallery).

76. Variationonan Indian theme: 5, by AnthonyCaro. 1985-86. Patinatedbronze. 80 by 81.3 by 44 cm. (Exh.Knoedler Gallery).

1960s, he made use of preconstituted indus- sculpture in Caro's wuvre';while Richard All this, of course, strongly suggests that trial elements, which he transformed and Whelan wrote that this work 'changes for- the qualities of Caro's art require an expla- re-combined through cutting and welding. ever our idea of what we can expect and nation in terms other than those of the Caro's wife often painted the finished works gives us a new vision of the possible'. Such 'onward of art', and an 'advance' towards in bright household colours. readings of Caro's work persist to this abstraction. Indeed, in the light of these Over the next few years, Caro began to day; in his new book AnthonyCaro,' Terry recent developments in Caro's work, the make those sculptures for which he is still Fenton distinguishes Caro from Smith on voluminous American 'reading' of his best known - works like Midday (1960), the grounds that Caro's sculpture 'did not sculpture seems more and more tenden- Early one morning (1962), and Pompadour symbolize or represent [. . .] the shapes tious, the comparison with Smith, less and (1963), all of which were included in his that composed it were just shapes'. It was, less rewarding. exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery 'a new sculpture that aspired to the "con- American formalist criticism, following in 1963. In the catalogue introduction, dition of music"'. Greenberg's example, has consistently Bryan Robertson wrote that Caro had Caro has sometimes seemed to endorse tended to disregard, if not to denigrate, produced sculptures 'without any outside such interpretations. As late as 1979, he the achievement of Henry Moore. For correspondences or parallels'. He stated said that 'in some new way', he foresaw example, in his book on Caro [1975], that Caro's work contained 'no references his work becoming more rather than less William Rubin argued that any sculpture to nature'. Caro, Robertson claimed, 'is abstract. But works like Midnightgap, 1976- that rises vertically before the spectator, really on his own'. Nonetheless, Caro's work 78, already showed such a complex textured 'retains by that very fact an inference of seemed to reflect the prevalent Zeitgeist of surface of bumps and hollows that, to the anthropomorphism even if it is not mono- the 1960s. His sculpture was conspicuously present reviewer at least, Caro's construc- lithic in character'. And so, Rubin main- 'new', urban, and American-inspired - the tion seemed to be seeking 'to convert itself tained, Caro's sculpture attained a more aesthetic equivalent of the white-heat of into the modelling out of which it first radical degree of abstraction than David Harold Wilson's technological revolution. sprang'. Similarly many of the Floor pieces, Smith's, 'as much by virtue of its horizon- Throughout the 1960s, Caro's influence and most of the Writing pieces, of the early tality as its morphology'. And yet anyone as both a sculptor, and a teacher of sculp- 1980s manifested 'a barely disguised, even who has attended to Henry Moore's work ture at St Martin's School of Art, continued if vigorously denied, pursuit of something knows not only where the much vaunted to grow. Caro attracted a voluminous litera- which.., is so redolent with affective and 'horizontality' of works like Midday came ture, written by Americanformalist critics. physical illusion and allusion that it can from, but also that it no more excludes The starting point for their arguments was legitimately be described as "imagery"'. 'an inference of anthropomorphism' than what Michael Fried called Caro's 'radical Not everyone, therefore, was surprised does verticality. But the American critics abstraction'. Similarly, for Clement Green- when Caro began to make figurative pieces could not admit this. It was axiomatic for berg, Caro's 'breakthrough' was related to alongside his abstract steel sculptures, and them that, as Fried once put it, 'Caro's the 'radical unlikeness to nature' of his work. combined the two ways of working in his sculptures reject almost everything that Both Fried and Greenberg argued that a Variationson an Indiantheme (Figs.75 and 76). Moore's stand for'. But most of Moore's Caro sculpture did not rely on 'illusion', And yet there can be no doubt that figures did not 'stand' for anything; rather, but rather depended upon the creation of these developments pose a challenge to as Caro seems to have noted, they reclined. a non-referential 'syntax', which Greenberg the existing American, critical literature Formalist criticism will have enormous defined as 'the relations of its discrete parts'. on Caro, which explains the importance difficulties in attempting to come to terms Some critics (though not Greenberg him- of his work almost exclusively in terms of with Caro's recent achievement. In his to self) seemed to imply that the aesthetic a 'breakthrough' to a 'radical abstraction' new book, Fenton struggles manfully value of Caro's sculpture depended upon which went beyond Smith's in its thorough- do so, but is clearly somewhat bewildered the resoluteness with which he had pressed going anti-anthropomorphism. Caro's re- by the Flats of the 1970s which, he reveal- these technical and stylistic innovations. cent works are among the most attractive ingly admits, 'looked like Henry Moore Such commentators tended to reserve their and accomplished of his career; and yet sculptures rolled flat'. Some of Caro's more most extravagant praise for works such as they do not seem to want to 'go beyond' recent works, like Scamander,involve curves, Prairie (1967), in which an extended ex- anything. Rather, they reach back to re- cavities and volumes. They look very like, panse of yellow steel appears to hover par- cuperate elements of the sculptural pursuit say, the Working modelfor recliningfigure allel to the and a of feet - like modelling, casting, figuration, sur- (internal and externalforms) (1951), or the ground, couple - above it. For Fried, Prairie went 'further face patinas, imagery and illusion which large Recliningfigure (externalforms) (1953- towards completely revoking the ordinary Caro had jettisoned on the way to his 54), upon which Moore was working about conditions of physicality than any other break-through. the time that Caro served as his assistant.

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77. Scamander,by Anthony Caro. 1985-86. Steel rusted and varnished. 78. Arcadiangliders, by Ian Hamilton Finlay and Steve Wheatley. Nine cardboard 137 by 315 by 152 cm. (Exh. Knoedler Gallery, London). model aeroplanes made up from a kit. (Exh. CraftsCouncil). This is not to impugn Caro's originality; it a humanist and yet spiritual vision in fully for about two decades. Idea artworks is rather to raise questions about the tra- sculptural terms. At his best, Caro wanted usually did not exist as physical objects; dition to which his best work belongs. Caro's to do something similar; but the strait- their domain was in the philosophical or recent work confirms that the sources upon jacket of fashionable American theory and political stance of the artist, and as such which he has drawn have been diverse and practices deflected and inhibited him. Now, could not be presented by the Establish- eclectic: it would be foolish to deny that they it seems, he is courageously endeavouring ment as commercial currency to be bought include American post-painterly aesthetics, to rid himself of those constraints. and sold way beyond the control of the Clement Greenberg, even certain aspects PETER FULLER artist-originator. Idea Art enabled artists of David Smith; but equally they also in- to subvert the gallery-dealer-Establishment clude - and, it should be stressed, always 'AnthonyCaro. By Terry Fenton. 128 pp. inc. 172 system and gave them more power to create have included - of Wheeler's ills., 98 in col. (Thames& Hudson,1986), ?12.95. a 'critical alternative'. This critical alter- something ISBN0-500-09172-2. classicism, and, as Greenberg himself once native usually took the form of printed 2See 'In MemoriamHenry Moore', Art Monthly acknowledged, even English engineering documentation referring the reader back [October1986], p.3. design.... But the most powerful influence to the original concept. But the problem of all has been none of these things: rather with this printed documentation was and it has been Henry Moore. 'I suppose he is that it is quite difficult to present it cold, was a kind of father figure to me', Caro trapped under glass in desk cases, in a wrote on Moore's recent death. 'Really I London, Crafts Council gallery context. And this is exactly what learned how to be a sculptor from him - I The Artist Publisher the Crafts Council exhibition does with the followed him yet reacted against him, as a material. son does'.2 But these days, he seems to be, The Crafts Council's show The Artist Why, I wonder, did the Crafts Council as it were, 'coming home' to Moore's hu- Publisherhas the subtitle A Surveyby Coracle offer its exhibition space for this show? It manist tradition on his own terms. Press. The initiated would know that exists to promote the crafts, and a good In the future, critics will come to regard Coracle Press means the gallery and press many of the works included in The Artist the much vaunted 'break-through' in run by Simon Cutts from his premises in Publisherare cheaply produced and crudely Caro's work as an interlude, or a diversion. Camberwell, South London, but nowhere printed. Its exhibition programming is Far from drawing out from him his greatest does his name appear in the credits or as interesting, for it has set alongside The achievements, American art, and American compiler of the exhibition catalogue. Artist Publishera celebration of the working criticism, may in fact have temporarily, The catalogue is divided into twelve life of Roger Powell, a consummate crafts- and partially, diverted Caro from the tra- sections, only the first of which has any man, who has spent his life making precious dition which had most to offer him, and introductory text, mainly a collection of and unique bookbindings. Certainly ex- to which he might have made his most quotes from letters to or from Simon Cutts hibition programming like this highlights significant contribution. The most con- and from other exhibition catalogues on the strong contrasts between the two shows spicuous technical weakness in Caro's sculp- the same topic. This first section is called and the two alternative paths to the pro- ture is its resolute planarity, its pictorial Self-publishing as a Critical Alternative, and duction of art. Also, why did Simon Cutts flatness; this is visible not only in Twenty Cutts explains how 'in some senses the take up the Crafts Council's exhibition four hours, but even in Midnight gap, and heading for this section could have been offer? He has his own gallery and recently most recently in the Indian themesculptures. taken for the title of the whole show, for in opened a shop at the Kettle's Yard Gallery, Caro's sculptures tend to work from a single a large proportion of individual and col- Cambridge. But perhaps he felt it was time point of view; Moore's possess a complete lective instances represented, the artist (or he offered a survey of the past two and a cylindrical roundness, a richer and fuller in some cases gallery) has exercised his half decades of the critical alternative in expression of sculptural form. But Caro's choice to present his ideas in . . . self- London, even though he would be aware American experience encouraged him to ac- published form in order to subvert an of the risks of making the material seem cept this limitation, rather than to struggle "Establishment' . .. who would be either sterile in such a context. Cutts and the beyond it, and to overcome it. This formal deaf or unsympathetic to his philosophical Crafts Council have been fully alert to this limitation seems, however, to be but an or practical ambitions'. Note that Cutts problem and have set up a shop in the emblem of a deeper malaise. Moore's art, writes about the artist's ideas finding a gallery as part of the installation. This in contrast to Caro's, never aspired to wider audience, rather than the artist's offers an opportunity to examine and buy 'radical abstraction'. Rather it was rooted works. Idea Art has now passed into art a good range of the works otherwise seen in natural and organic form, and ulti- history, recognised as a lively and often unopened or partly obscured in the glass mately in the expressive potential of the anarchic episode involving artists in cases by artists such as Richard Long or human body itself. Moore sought to affirm America and Europe from the late 1950s Ian Hamilton Finlay (see Figs.78 and 79).

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