Current Exhibitions

Abstract

Print exhibitions continue to occupy an appreciable area in the art world; many of them afford an example of that desirable union of quality and quantity which is as rare as it is gratifying. If one should plot the chronology that print shows follow it would prove to be a highly accidented chart. The holiday season offered many groups of old engravings; now with a dizzying swoop downwards from these fifteenth and sixteenth century prints, it reaches modern work and the contemporary moment. An exhibition of unusual interest comprises the complete work of the English etcher, Gerald L. Brockhurst (with the exception of three or four plates) as well as a group of his paintings. This show, held at the Kleeman Galleries, marks the first exhibition of Brockhurst's entire graphic oeuvre, although his work is well known from inclusion in English print exhibits. No one who has seen a print by this artist needs to have any stress laid on his drawing; Brockhurst is a superb draftsman, from the earliest plate his impeccable drawing makes first impression. Also, from the first plate, there is indication of his later development, not only in subject matter (it is a portrait and the artist is only concerned with figures, landscapes being occasionally introduced as effective setting for figures) but, because in its suggestion of stippling, the elaboration of his later technique is clearly foreshadowed. Brockhurst, with a few other modern English artists, departs radically from the accepted canons of etched work. The swiftness of record, the suggestion of unstudied ease in this spontaneous setting down of the essentials of a subject with the utmost economy of means which characterize the conventional etching are not to be found in this work. Here the artist approaches his subject as a painter might, blocking it out in advance, giving his composition a beautiful balance of tonal masses and rich patterns of light and shadow, building it all up with slow careful processes of technical elaboration, so that the finished plate has more the character of a painting than a print. It is fascinating to mark his development in successive plates and see him obtaining increased facility and finally gaining the technical mastery that results in such richness of tones, variety of velvety textures, brilliance of delicately adjusted color pattern. Occasionally, in his mature expression, virtuosity gets the better of him and such a plate as The Black Silk Dress calls more for amazement than admiration. Yet the real wonder is that with all this complexity of execution, this uncanny power of draftsmanship he is able to endow his figures with such vitality. For all its classic perfection his synthetic line has vivacity and tenseness of life between its contours, while he complements his objective veracity with a penetrating discernment of character. It is futile to single out single examples, yet Una is a plate that cannot go unrecorded, for it seems to epitomize the artist's highest achievement.