Viewing page 28 of 39

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

G-8 THE SUNDAY STAR and DAILY NEWS
Washington, D.C., September 10, 1972. 

Pretty Good Little Shows Without A Guide

By BENJAMIN FORGEY
Star-News Staff Writer

There is nothing terribly spectacular about the round of season-opening shows at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, unless you count your art spectaculars by the numbers: Five shows by eight artists taking up eight large galleries and a couple of corridors.

ART

For openers, in three galleries bordering the atrium on the first floor, there is a retrospective look at the works of Alma Thomas, who at 77 has earned a niche in the history of Washington art but who until yesterday, when the Corcoran shows opened to the public, had not been given an exhibition in a Washington museum. 

ACCOMPANYING the Thomas show downstairs is a one-room, one-artist exhibition devoted to the works of Turker Ozdogan, a young ceramicist much given to winning prizes at George Washington University, where he earned his master's degree last May.

Then, upstairs, there is a show of drawings and prints by Ralph Woehrman, a young artist from Cleveland whose works, on their first visit to Washington, line one long corridor of the atrium.

Next in line comes the Washington room, transferred temporarily upstairs mainly in order that Gordon Riggle's paintings get the benefit of natural lighting from the skylight in Gallery 67. Riggle is a landscape architect who began painting seriously earlier this year. This is his first show, and his work is the most pleasant surprise in the whole extravaganza. Riggle shares the room with David Stephens, director of the education department at the Corcoran, and David Staton, a sensitive young artist who, like Stephens, gives us here something of a replay of a show earlier this year at the Jefferson Place Gallery. 

The finale arrives in the presence of Julian Stanczak, an Albersian geometrist who exhibits four large paintings on the corridor walls flanking the entrance to his show and, inside, three rooms of recent drawings and prints. 

There's nothing really wrong with this mix. Eclecticism as a policy is defensible, and all of the art presented here is meritorious to some degree. But the sense of pace, the rhythm of the combined exhibitions, the way the shows relate to each other - all of this seems slightly out of kilter. Upstairs, for instance, three big rooms seem excessive for the Stanczak show. It comes on as a main event, whereas it would have made a dandy preliminary. What we have here is a miscellaneous collection of pretty good little shows that seem to lack a guiding pulse.

THIS MAY BE unfair to the one genuinely comprehensive exhibition of the bunch, the Thomas retrospective. This is a show that needed doing but it comes with a certain built-in cost. A large exhibition like this does indeed accentuate the limitations of the work as much as it focuses on the achievements.

Alma Thomas is the naive of Washington color painters. In the 1920s she was the first graduate of the Howard University art department, and she taught art in the District public school system for many years, but she did not begin to paint seriously until the early 1950s. In this show the number of works from the first decade is not large, but it is sufficient to trace the main lines of development from the Matisse-cum-American-University - influenced still life of 1955 through rather formalized versions of abstract expressionism to a looser, brighter watercolor of 1960.

In the early to middle 1960s, Miss Thomas discovered her own subject matter and the formal vocabulary to translate a unique vision of the world into art. Though in fact the elements of this discovery are inseparable, for purposes of analyses they can be listed: inspiration from the "real" world, especially the world of flowers and the garden; a systematic, stylized way of applying paint in mosaic-like daubs (Jacob Kainen nicely characterized her in 1966 as "the Signac of current color painters"); a geometrical approach to form, deriving principally from the examples of color painters Kenneth Noland and Gene Davis, and a delightfully confident sensibility in the handling of color.

There is in the show a row of paintings that perfectly illustrates this amalgam. It consists of four, perhaps five, medium-sized paintings of circles radiating in concentric, mosiac-like rings from the center of the canvas to the edges. In describing them, one cannot choose between labels: They are "color paintings," relating to Noland's targets, and they are flower paintings. The intensity and subtlety of their color describes both nature and art. 

It is this consistent, inescapable associational quality that 

[[image]]
"Wind, Sunshine and Flowers" by Alma Thomas.

separates the work of Miss Thomas from the mainstream of Washington color painting, where associations, when you can catch them, are ethereal. Miss Thomas' success bespeaks an artistic character of rare strength but, as quite a few paintings in the retrospective attest, it is a strength that also leads her astray. The paintings of the exploration of space, inspired by the Apollo program, are the most obvious instances where her work loses in intensity as it gains in anecdote.

But that is the way of retrospective exhibitions - we really do get to know the artists better, blemishes and all. After looking at this richly deserved show, there is no mistaking Alma Thomas as a remarkable woman and remarkable artist. And, as the latest work in the show demonstrates, she is still growing as an artist. 

Turker Ozdogan came to Washington two years ago from his native Turkey. He is a very good potter whose ambition is ceramic sculpture based upon hollow ring forms. Ceramic sculpture is a fight with the vagaries of the kiln, which inhibits large size and presents other, enormously difficult problems in terms of form and finish.

It is a credit to Ozdogan that in several instances he has created pieces that succeed both as sculpture and ceramics, pieces with purity of design and good spatial presence. See the pacific, blue-glazed series of rings and the eight-foot-high piece called "Anatolia." But in others the finish is bad and the forms lack emotional punch; to these the good old functional pots, such as a terrific yard-high pitcher with its beautiful umber glaze, are preferable. 

Up the grand staircase and into another world, that of Ralph Woehrman, whose drawings are remarkable for their size, virtuosity and a sort of funky morbidity. Woehrman quite correctly abjures color. The elements of his world - portrait heads and reptilian creatures and machines whose functions are never spelled out - are perfectly keyed in black and white. In a way I find these works rather showy and distasteful, but there is no gainsaying the strength of the curious combination of forthright, powerful drawing and sealed, hermetic meanings. 

In the Washington room, there is the Riggle phenomenon: a painter, Gordon Riggle, who springs forth in full bloom after six months with the air brush, and with no visible signs of struggle.

The paintings are soft-focus, all-over compositions in which color acts less as hue than as shading for amorphous forms. There are two distinct types of painting here: those in which there seems to be a traceable grid placed on a diagonal to the rectangular canvas, and those in which forms are more definite, mysterious and associational, like close-ups of the surface of the moon, perhaps, or the windings of a greatly enlarged intestinal tract. The latter works suggest that for all of Riggle's acceptance of the theory and practice of contemporary abstract painting, his work will contain a moody undercurrent of real-world associations. 

Contributions by Stephens and Staton were not completely installed during my visits last week, but in both cases the chief interest will be to see how the familiar work looks in that big, high-ceilinged room. 

The Stephens piece consists of 100 of his painted "modules," each of which is made up of a block (largest dimension: about 3 feet) of dark-stained canvas covered with a sheet of transparent vinyl. It should look quite elegant in this setting. Staton's work is rugged and poetic. The materials vary, but they come from the country, the land: sharp, textured sheets of shale, weathered wooden beans, water-rounded stones, shingles. Particularly interesting will be to see what happens when he expands a floor piece of shingles and stones - a sort of ruralized Carl Andre - to 15 x 15 feet. 

In this miscellaneous constellation of artists, Stanczak shines as the sole established star. The principal influences are obvious - Albers, with whom Stanczak studied in the middle 1950s, and Anuskiewicz - though the latter case is probably more a coincidence of palette than a direct connection. In any case, Stanczak at his best is better than both, or either. 

Unfortunately, the show is rather too comprehensive, as regards recent serigraphs and drawings, and rather too skimpy, as regards paintings or earlier works. All too many of the works are rather standard, and to me rather boring, optical tricks, but even here and precision of intellect and execution is a joy to observe. 

Particularly fine are a series of drawings accomplished with oil paint on metal or plastic grounds. The precision is simply astonishing, and in the better works the musculature of the composition and the rhythm in the flow of lines (or, conversely, the interstices) attains a level of magic presence. 

The same is true, only more-so, for one really, really good painting in the show: "Melting in Late Color," a sequential arrangement of circles, horizontal lines and color that takes Op beyond the physiological domain between the retina and the brain, into the nether world where color and light become one. 

Art Show Openings

ARTIST'S MART - Paintings and watercolors by Juichi Kamikawa, and oil fired porcelain and stoneware by Andrew Walford. 1361 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Tuesday through Sept. 30. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

DUPONT THEATER ART GALLERY - Paintings by Gladys Kazigian. 1332 Connecticut Ave. NW. Today through Sept. 24. Hours: Monday through Friday, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 2:45 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

EMERSON GALLERY - Heliographs by Fred Pitts, "mataforms" by Paula Diehl, and collages by Hedwig Lee. 1437 Emerson Ave., McLean. Saturday through Sept. 30. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

FRANZ BADER GALLERY - Graphics of Ivan Valtchev, 2124 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Tuesday through Sept. 30. Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

GALLERY 8400 - Weaving, tapestries and tables by Susan Clifford, Diane Schleigh, Gail Singer and Margette Talf. Also, "Fisticals," an exhibition of dolls by Paige Prichard. 8400 Connecticut Ave., Chevy Chase. Today through October 8. Hours: 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thrusday through Sunday.

HENRI GALLERY - Flower paintings by Rakuku Naito. 1500 21st St. NW. Tuesday through Sept. 30. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

HENRI 2 - New paintings by Tadaaki Kuwayama. 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW. Tuesday through September 30. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

I.F.A. GALLERIES - Exhibition of recent paintings by Joni Pienkowski. 2623 Connecticut Ave. NW, Tuesday through October 7. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to 6 p.m.

JUNE 1 GALLERY OF FINE ART - Prints by 16 member artists of the San Francisco Graphic Arts Workshop. 2647 Connecticut Ave. NW. Tuesday through October 7. Hours: Tuesday through Saturlay, 11 to 6 p.m. 

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART - Old Master Drawings from Christ Church, Oxford, including drawings by Leonardo Verrochio, Bellini, Pontormo, Michelangelo, Titian, Durer, Holbein, Claude, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Van Dyck. Sixth Street and Constitution Ave. NW. Saturday through Oct. 22. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday: Noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. 

NORTHERN VIRGINIA FINE ARTS ASSOCIATION - "Matthew Brady and his 20th Century Friends," an exhibit of contemporary fine art photography along with a collection of masterworks by 19th century camera artists and portrait painters, 261 Prince Street Alexandria, Thursday through October 6. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. 

THE OCTAGON - Photographic panels and slides of the work of the winners of the 1972 American Institute of Architects award program. 1799 New York Ave. NW. Tuesday through Sept 24. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. 

THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION - "The Migration of the Negro" by Jacob Lawrence, the complete set of 60 panels. 1600-1621 21st St NW. Today through October 23. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.

STUDIO GALLERY - Recent paintings by V. Greenleaf Koch, 1735 Connecticut Ave. NW. Today through Sept. 30. Hours: 11 a.m to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday. 

THE THIRD SPRING - "Planters, Plants, and Pillows," an exhibition of hand crafted planters and a variety of hand woven and designed pillows 1655 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Tomorrow through Sept. 30. Hours: Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m to 6 p.m.