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Portrait of an Artist: Henry Moore by John ReadReview by: Richard CowdyLeonardo, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1982), p. 78Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574367 .

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Francis Picabia: His Art, Life and Times. William A. Camfield. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1979. 366 pp., illus., $44.00. Reviewed by Louise Campbell*

Camfield says that his original intention was to produce a traditional art historical monograph on Picabia. Since no reliable chronology existed for his artworks, he decided to supply one and, also, as he became convinced of the unity of Picabia's life and art, a certain amount of biographical information and some consideration of his writings.

Camfield approached his task in scholarly fashion, charting the influence on Picabia's works by Impressionism, Neo- Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism. It is when Picabia became involved with Marcel Duchamp and, subsequently, with the Dada group in Switzerland that the author's approach is put to the test. I find that one needs to know more than he tells about the personality of the artist and the milieu in which he lived to understand paintings such as 'Le Lierre unique eunuque', exhibited at the Paris Salon des Independants in 1920.

The shift in Picabia's orientation that occurred just before World War I and that makes his subsequent work appear so idiosyncratic may be superficially described as a shift away from Cubism to Dadaism. Yet, what a complex aesthetic, philosophical and personal change the pictures of 1913 suggest. Accompanying his works to the Armory Show in New York City that year, Picabia was struck by the vitality of life in this City. In particular, he was intrigued by the ideas of the photographer Stieglitz and the aesthetician de Zayas that the camera could serve an essentially objective, recording function in society, leaving the visual artists free to concentrate upon depicting their subjective states. Back in Paris that spring, Picabia produced a pair of 2.75 x 2.75 m canvases, 'Edtaonisl' and 'Udnie', which he described as 'Memories of America, evocations from there which, subtly opposed like musical harmonies, become representative of an idea ...... In contrast to his works of 1912, such as 'Danses a Ia Source I', which, based on a memory of a figurative image, is tied to the cubist approach to depicting forms with facetted planes and to a certain concern with depicting movement, these are altogether more difficult to analyze.

The picture 'Edtaonisl (ecclesiastique)' it seems was inspired by an incident during Picabia's visit to the U.S.A. His remembrance of the dancer Napierkowska in a practice session covertly observed by a Dominican priest is transposed into a depiction of a cluster of pale, succulent forms on a gold ground, upon which dark spirals and curvaceous, brightly coloured forms encroach. 'Udnie (jeune fille americaine; danse)' offers a still more generalised evocation of the 'Udnie' cabaret and of the rhythms of its band. In 'le revois en souvenir ma chire Udnie' of 1914, Picabia depicts his female subject this time in terms of a fleshy but unidentifiable organism, whose title reinforces a play on words (Udnie-nudit6).

Revisiting New York City in 1915, Picabia attempted to make explicit relationships between human and mechanical function- ing, with which he and Duchamp were then concerned, by producing a series of portrait drawings and elaborate collages that incorporate pictures in advertising and technical manuals. On his return to Paris, he disturbed the post-World War I art world with his views by means of pamphlets, magazine articles, 'mechanomorphic' paintings and ones that seemed designed to challenge the regulations of the Salons as to what constituted an artwork. Picabia gradually detached himself from his former dadaist friends and from the younger generation of writers clustered around Andre Breton. Yet the directions that Picabia's work subsequently took (the 'monsters' of 1924-27 and the 'transparencies' of the 1930s) are, I find, effective interpretations of surrealist ideas: the superimposition of disparate approaches to pictures of the past and of the present; the use of calligraphy and of diverse materials for making a picture; the blend of mythological and private meaning of what is seen. Alas, he abandoned this approach for one that was increasingly simplified; brief excursions into depicting landscapes and erotic

Francis Picabia: His Art, Life and Times. William A. Camfield. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1979. 366 pp., illus., $44.00. Reviewed by Louise Campbell*

Camfield says that his original intention was to produce a traditional art historical monograph on Picabia. Since no reliable chronology existed for his artworks, he decided to supply one and, also, as he became convinced of the unity of Picabia's life and art, a certain amount of biographical information and some consideration of his writings.

Camfield approached his task in scholarly fashion, charting the influence on Picabia's works by Impressionism, Neo- Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism. It is when Picabia became involved with Marcel Duchamp and, subsequently, with the Dada group in Switzerland that the author's approach is put to the test. I find that one needs to know more than he tells about the personality of the artist and the milieu in which he lived to understand paintings such as 'Le Lierre unique eunuque', exhibited at the Paris Salon des Independants in 1920.

The shift in Picabia's orientation that occurred just before World War I and that makes his subsequent work appear so idiosyncratic may be superficially described as a shift away from Cubism to Dadaism. Yet, what a complex aesthetic, philosophical and personal change the pictures of 1913 suggest. Accompanying his works to the Armory Show in New York City that year, Picabia was struck by the vitality of life in this City. In particular, he was intrigued by the ideas of the photographer Stieglitz and the aesthetician de Zayas that the camera could serve an essentially objective, recording function in society, leaving the visual artists free to concentrate upon depicting their subjective states. Back in Paris that spring, Picabia produced a pair of 2.75 x 2.75 m canvases, 'Edtaonisl' and 'Udnie', which he described as 'Memories of America, evocations from there which, subtly opposed like musical harmonies, become representative of an idea ...... In contrast to his works of 1912, such as 'Danses a Ia Source I', which, based on a memory of a figurative image, is tied to the cubist approach to depicting forms with facetted planes and to a certain concern with depicting movement, these are altogether more difficult to analyze.

The picture 'Edtaonisl (ecclesiastique)' it seems was inspired by an incident during Picabia's visit to the U.S.A. His remembrance of the dancer Napierkowska in a practice session covertly observed by a Dominican priest is transposed into a depiction of a cluster of pale, succulent forms on a gold ground, upon which dark spirals and curvaceous, brightly coloured forms encroach. 'Udnie (jeune fille americaine; danse)' offers a still more generalised evocation of the 'Udnie' cabaret and of the rhythms of its band. In 'le revois en souvenir ma chire Udnie' of 1914, Picabia depicts his female subject this time in terms of a fleshy but unidentifiable organism, whose title reinforces a play on words (Udnie-nudit6).

Revisiting New York City in 1915, Picabia attempted to make explicit relationships between human and mechanical function- ing, with which he and Duchamp were then concerned, by producing a series of portrait drawings and elaborate collages that incorporate pictures in advertising and technical manuals. On his return to Paris, he disturbed the post-World War I art world with his views by means of pamphlets, magazine articles, 'mechanomorphic' paintings and ones that seemed designed to challenge the regulations of the Salons as to what constituted an artwork. Picabia gradually detached himself from his former dadaist friends and from the younger generation of writers clustered around Andre Breton. Yet the directions that Picabia's work subsequently took (the 'monsters' of 1924-27 and the 'transparencies' of the 1930s) are, I find, effective interpretations of surrealist ideas: the superimposition of disparate approaches to pictures of the past and of the present; the use of calligraphy and of diverse materials for making a picture; the blend of mythological and private meaning of what is seen. Alas, he abandoned this approach for one that was increasingly simplified; brief excursions into depicting landscapes and erotic

Francis Picabia: His Art, Life and Times. William A. Camfield. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1979. 366 pp., illus., $44.00. Reviewed by Louise Campbell*

Camfield says that his original intention was to produce a traditional art historical monograph on Picabia. Since no reliable chronology existed for his artworks, he decided to supply one and, also, as he became convinced of the unity of Picabia's life and art, a certain amount of biographical information and some consideration of his writings.

Camfield approached his task in scholarly fashion, charting the influence on Picabia's works by Impressionism, Neo- Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism. It is when Picabia became involved with Marcel Duchamp and, subsequently, with the Dada group in Switzerland that the author's approach is put to the test. I find that one needs to know more than he tells about the personality of the artist and the milieu in which he lived to understand paintings such as 'Le Lierre unique eunuque', exhibited at the Paris Salon des Independants in 1920.

The shift in Picabia's orientation that occurred just before World War I and that makes his subsequent work appear so idiosyncratic may be superficially described as a shift away from Cubism to Dadaism. Yet, what a complex aesthetic, philosophical and personal change the pictures of 1913 suggest. Accompanying his works to the Armory Show in New York City that year, Picabia was struck by the vitality of life in this City. In particular, he was intrigued by the ideas of the photographer Stieglitz and the aesthetician de Zayas that the camera could serve an essentially objective, recording function in society, leaving the visual artists free to concentrate upon depicting their subjective states. Back in Paris that spring, Picabia produced a pair of 2.75 x 2.75 m canvases, 'Edtaonisl' and 'Udnie', which he described as 'Memories of America, evocations from there which, subtly opposed like musical harmonies, become representative of an idea ...... In contrast to his works of 1912, such as 'Danses a Ia Source I', which, based on a memory of a figurative image, is tied to the cubist approach to depicting forms with facetted planes and to a certain concern with depicting movement, these are altogether more difficult to analyze.

The picture 'Edtaonisl (ecclesiastique)' it seems was inspired by an incident during Picabia's visit to the U.S.A. His remembrance of the dancer Napierkowska in a practice session covertly observed by a Dominican priest is transposed into a depiction of a cluster of pale, succulent forms on a gold ground, upon which dark spirals and curvaceous, brightly coloured forms encroach. 'Udnie (jeune fille americaine; danse)' offers a still more generalised evocation of the 'Udnie' cabaret and of the rhythms of its band. In 'le revois en souvenir ma chire Udnie' of 1914, Picabia depicts his female subject this time in terms of a fleshy but unidentifiable organism, whose title reinforces a play on words (Udnie-nudit6).

Revisiting New York City in 1915, Picabia attempted to make explicit relationships between human and mechanical function- ing, with which he and Duchamp were then concerned, by producing a series of portrait drawings and elaborate collages that incorporate pictures in advertising and technical manuals. On his return to Paris, he disturbed the post-World War I art world with his views by means of pamphlets, magazine articles, 'mechanomorphic' paintings and ones that seemed designed to challenge the regulations of the Salons as to what constituted an artwork. Picabia gradually detached himself from his former dadaist friends and from the younger generation of writers clustered around Andre Breton. Yet the directions that Picabia's work subsequently took (the 'monsters' of 1924-27 and the 'transparencies' of the 1930s) are, I find, effective interpretations of surrealist ideas: the superimposition of disparate approaches to pictures of the past and of the present; the use of calligraphy and of diverse materials for making a picture; the blend of mythological and private meaning of what is seen. Alas, he abandoned this approach for one that was increasingly simplified; brief excursions into depicting landscapes and erotic

*17 Duke St., Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. *17 Duke St., Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. *17 Duke St., Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England.

'pin-ups' of the 1940s were followed by a final period of increased introversion and abstraction.

'Superficially his art can be recounted by stages, but if only one might be gifted with sensitivity and feeling, how the whole is "linked"', wrote Germaine Everling, Picabia's longtime companion and wife. For an artist like Picabia whose work, I tind, lacks a strong internal logic and consistency, more than a passing consideration of His Art, Life and Times is necessary to make such links. Yet, this book did succeed in convincing me that Picabia was rather more than a 'rich' joker and, in particular, deserves praise for Camfield's attempted rehabilitation of the late works. The fullness of documentation and illustration (despite some poor colour plates) suggests to me that this book will be the standard work on Picabia for some years.

Portrait of an Artist: Henry Moore. John Read, Whizzard/Andri Deutsch, London, 1979. 141 pp., illus., ?4.95. Reviewed by Richard Cowdy*

The author has produced several television films about Henry Moore, whom he has known for some 30 years. This book has a well and simply written non-technical text. It includes a section on the sculptor's life before he became well known, when he earned a living through teaching art and was helped by friends, including artists.

Moore, who participated in the exciting developments in sculpture of the 1930s, is described as one of solid integrity and unswayable by passing artistic fashions. Read focuses on Moore's admiration of forms found in nature and on his poetic way of combining sculpted human figures in landscape environments. Quotations from Moore's writings and Read's conversations with him support the view of an Englishman who has little sympathy with pseudo-intellectualism and with dogmatic manifestos. There is no negative comment on Moore's sculptures and drawings, and Read's faith in the quality of pieces after 1950 that were enlarged by assistants seems complete.

I do not think there is much point in destructive writing about an artist and, evidently, neither does Read. I found his book increased my awareness of 'feeling' in Moore's works. Moore's students Reg Butler and Anthony Caro are not mentioned nor is his influence on other sculptors.

The illustrations are good, except for those spanning two pages; their break of continuity annoyed me.

The Reasoning Vision: Jehangir Sabavala's Painterly Universe. Dilip Chitre. Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi, India, 1980. 72 pp., illus. Reviewed by S. I. Clerk**

This monograph with an Introduction and Notes by Chitre deals with the oil paintings made between 1965 and 1975 by Sabavala, a Parsi artist of India who studied in art schools in Bombay, London and Paris in the 1940s and returned to India in 1957 to develop a special niche for himself among contemporary painters of his country.

It may be that some critics in India find his works too Occidental, but he has a distinctive style of his own, even though he acknowledges his admiration of works by Michelangelo, Turner, Cezanne, Lyonel Feininger and Juan Gris. In my view, he has effectively integrated certain concepts drawn from both Oriental and Occidental traditions.

Chitre deals primarily with Sabavala's desert-like landscapes that usually contain draped human figures whose gaze is directed toward a distant horizon and whose relatively small size accentuates the scale of the landscapes. They give the impression that he wishes to stress a sense of human insignificance and helplessness and the grandeur of deserts and mountains. They

'pin-ups' of the 1940s were followed by a final period of increased introversion and abstraction.

'Superficially his art can be recounted by stages, but if only one might be gifted with sensitivity and feeling, how the whole is "linked"', wrote Germaine Everling, Picabia's longtime companion and wife. For an artist like Picabia whose work, I tind, lacks a strong internal logic and consistency, more than a passing consideration of His Art, Life and Times is necessary to make such links. Yet, this book did succeed in convincing me that Picabia was rather more than a 'rich' joker and, in particular, deserves praise for Camfield's attempted rehabilitation of the late works. The fullness of documentation and illustration (despite some poor colour plates) suggests to me that this book will be the standard work on Picabia for some years.

Portrait of an Artist: Henry Moore. John Read, Whizzard/Andri Deutsch, London, 1979. 141 pp., illus., ?4.95. Reviewed by Richard Cowdy*

The author has produced several television films about Henry Moore, whom he has known for some 30 years. This book has a well and simply written non-technical text. It includes a section on the sculptor's life before he became well known, when he earned a living through teaching art and was helped by friends, including artists.

Moore, who participated in the exciting developments in sculpture of the 1930s, is described as one of solid integrity and unswayable by passing artistic fashions. Read focuses on Moore's admiration of forms found in nature and on his poetic way of combining sculpted human figures in landscape environments. Quotations from Moore's writings and Read's conversations with him support the view of an Englishman who has little sympathy with pseudo-intellectualism and with dogmatic manifestos. There is no negative comment on Moore's sculptures and drawings, and Read's faith in the quality of pieces after 1950 that were enlarged by assistants seems complete.

I do not think there is much point in destructive writing about an artist and, evidently, neither does Read. I found his book increased my awareness of 'feeling' in Moore's works. Moore's students Reg Butler and Anthony Caro are not mentioned nor is his influence on other sculptors.

The illustrations are good, except for those spanning two pages; their break of continuity annoyed me.

The Reasoning Vision: Jehangir Sabavala's Painterly Universe. Dilip Chitre. Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi, India, 1980. 72 pp., illus. Reviewed by S. I. Clerk**

This monograph with an Introduction and Notes by Chitre deals with the oil paintings made between 1965 and 1975 by Sabavala, a Parsi artist of India who studied in art schools in Bombay, London and Paris in the 1940s and returned to India in 1957 to develop a special niche for himself among contemporary painters of his country.

It may be that some critics in India find his works too Occidental, but he has a distinctive style of his own, even though he acknowledges his admiration of works by Michelangelo, Turner, Cezanne, Lyonel Feininger and Juan Gris. In my view, he has effectively integrated certain concepts drawn from both Oriental and Occidental traditions.

Chitre deals primarily with Sabavala's desert-like landscapes that usually contain draped human figures whose gaze is directed toward a distant horizon and whose relatively small size accentuates the scale of the landscapes. They give the impression that he wishes to stress a sense of human insignificance and helplessness and the grandeur of deserts and mountains. They

'pin-ups' of the 1940s were followed by a final period of increased introversion and abstraction.

'Superficially his art can be recounted by stages, but if only one might be gifted with sensitivity and feeling, how the whole is "linked"', wrote Germaine Everling, Picabia's longtime companion and wife. For an artist like Picabia whose work, I tind, lacks a strong internal logic and consistency, more than a passing consideration of His Art, Life and Times is necessary to make such links. Yet, this book did succeed in convincing me that Picabia was rather more than a 'rich' joker and, in particular, deserves praise for Camfield's attempted rehabilitation of the late works. The fullness of documentation and illustration (despite some poor colour plates) suggests to me that this book will be the standard work on Picabia for some years.

Portrait of an Artist: Henry Moore. John Read, Whizzard/Andri Deutsch, London, 1979. 141 pp., illus., ?4.95. Reviewed by Richard Cowdy*

The author has produced several television films about Henry Moore, whom he has known for some 30 years. This book has a well and simply written non-technical text. It includes a section on the sculptor's life before he became well known, when he earned a living through teaching art and was helped by friends, including artists.

Moore, who participated in the exciting developments in sculpture of the 1930s, is described as one of solid integrity and unswayable by passing artistic fashions. Read focuses on Moore's admiration of forms found in nature and on his poetic way of combining sculpted human figures in landscape environments. Quotations from Moore's writings and Read's conversations with him support the view of an Englishman who has little sympathy with pseudo-intellectualism and with dogmatic manifestos. There is no negative comment on Moore's sculptures and drawings, and Read's faith in the quality of pieces after 1950 that were enlarged by assistants seems complete.

I do not think there is much point in destructive writing about an artist and, evidently, neither does Read. I found his book increased my awareness of 'feeling' in Moore's works. Moore's students Reg Butler and Anthony Caro are not mentioned nor is his influence on other sculptors.

The illustrations are good, except for those spanning two pages; their break of continuity annoyed me.

The Reasoning Vision: Jehangir Sabavala's Painterly Universe. Dilip Chitre. Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi, India, 1980. 72 pp., illus. Reviewed by S. I. Clerk**

This monograph with an Introduction and Notes by Chitre deals with the oil paintings made between 1965 and 1975 by Sabavala, a Parsi artist of India who studied in art schools in Bombay, London and Paris in the 1940s and returned to India in 1957 to develop a special niche for himself among contemporary painters of his country.

It may be that some critics in India find his works too Occidental, but he has a distinctive style of his own, even though he acknowledges his admiration of works by Michelangelo, Turner, Cezanne, Lyonel Feininger and Juan Gris. In my view, he has effectively integrated certain concepts drawn from both Oriental and Occidental traditions.

Chitre deals primarily with Sabavala's desert-like landscapes that usually contain draped human figures whose gaze is directed toward a distant horizon and whose relatively small size accentuates the scale of the landscapes. They give the impression that he wishes to stress a sense of human insignificance and helplessness and the grandeur of deserts and mountains. They

*18 Wood St. Calne Wilts., England. ** 105 A Simla House, L. J. Marg, Nepean Sea Road, Bombay

400036, India.

*18 Wood St. Calne Wilts., England. ** 105 A Simla House, L. J. Marg, Nepean Sea Road, Bombay

400036, India.

*18 Wood St. Calne Wilts., England. ** 105 A Simla House, L. J. Marg, Nepean Sea Road, Bombay

400036, India.

Books Books Books 78 78 78

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