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Thursday, February 22, 1962       
BEVERLY HILLS TIMES

ART REVIEW
Necromancy At the Dwan
By ARTHUR SECUNDA

If black art is the magic of witchcraft then Ad Reinhardt, who is showing mat blackish canvases of different sizes at the Dwan Gallery in Westwood this month, is a sorcerer.

Indeed, the very nature of these pictures requires the viewer, after initial disbelieving shock, to sit quietly before these sullen objects for several minutes, allowing the sunlight stored up in one's eyes from having just left the street, to gradually escape.

When this new vision is finally oriented, subtle, warm and cool, ghost-like, rectangular apparitions appear as from nowhere, receding and advancing in complex formal patterns of imposing geometric grandeur. 

This theatrical requirement of the spectator may be likened to walking into a dark room, letting one's eyes adjust to the darkness, and slowly distinguishing the presence of contours of objects surrounding one.

Reinhardt represents the antithesis of impressionism which utilized sunlight in the dynamic determination of color. He, on the other hand, exploits the properties inherent in darkness, using color keys of the hue of coal. The impact of this exhibition might have been more total if the Dwan walls were painted black for this special event.