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RSA Annual Exhibition 2004 Review - Duncan MacMillan

Still, the new spaciousness has been used with great success by the hanging committee to make the annual exhibition look better than ever. There are almost 500 works, but it does not seem crowded. Some of the old rules have been abandoned too, so there is more mix and more informality in the hang. Instead of the president, who usually occupies the central position in the main gallery, there is The Bride, a triptych by John Bellany, a reprise of his great triptych, The Bounteous Sea. Bellany is an HRSA (honorary member). So are Eve Arnold and Antoni Tapies; Arnold is showing one of her portraits of Marilyn Monroe, and Tapies, the grand old man of Catalan art, has sent in two austere prints. In a clever piece of hanging, a group of Willie Rodger’s inimitable black and white prints hangs bedside one of Tapies’s entries. The comparison is not to his disadvantage.

There is also a significant group of invited artists this year. Among their contributions, there is a John Byrne self-portrait, and a magnificent, multi-figured fantasy picture by Steven Campbell. It is like a wild remake of one of Noel Paton’s fairy paintings, and a powerful image, but Peter Howson’s Last Supper is simply bizarre. Still, it is important the Academy is reaching out to be inclusive in this way.

Among the academy members, instead of his usual dramatic colour, John Houston’s At the Coast, Morning is a schematic landscape, a tense and wiry picture that shows him reflecting more deeply than ever on the lessons of Mondrian. It is austere and austerity seems to be a bit of a thing this year. There’s a Frances Walker’s print Tide out at Vallay and a big painting by Callum Innes. More Gothic in form than his usual compositions. There is also a very fine early drawing by Derek Clarke. There is a lovely print by Joe Ganter, Cardinal Glimpses, and one of the most austerely beautiful works by Phil Reeves, Horizontal Code. It is just a sequence of circles and segments of circles, but it sings like music for the eye.

Elizabeth Blackadder’s watercolour, Anemones and Hyacinths, is spare in economy, but is anything but austere in beauty. Barrier is a fantastic landscape in a quattrocento manner by Joe Fan, recently elected ARSA (associate member). Among the entries from non-members there is Scottish Icon, a fine Scotch Pie by Mhairi MacDonald-Grieg, a group of exquisite small nude paintings by Molly Garnier and a wood carving by Kenneth Raeburn. Head-Rhyme, a strong little abstract painting by John McLean, sits rather awkwardly on top of one of John Mooney’s complicated visual poems, La Mer Morte and Optical illusion. This is an exhibition of quality, beautifully hung.

Web Link: www.news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=388092004

	RSA Annual Exhibition 2004 Review - Duncan MacMillan

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	Still, the new spaciousness has been used with great success by the hanging committee to make the annual exhibition look better than ever. There are almost 500 works, but it does not seem crowded. Some of the old rules have been abandoned too, so there is more mix and more informality in the hang. Instead of the president, who usually occupies the central position in the main gallery, there is The Bride, a triptych by John Bellany, a reprise of his great triptych, The Bounteous Sea. Bellany is an HRSA (honorary member). So are Eve Arnold and Antoni Tapies; Arnold is showing one of her portraits of Marilyn Monroe, and Tapies, the grand old man of Catalan art, has sent in two austere prints. In a clever piece of hanging, a group of Willie Rodger’s inimitable black and white prints hangs bedside one of Tapies’s entries. The comparison is not to his disadvantage. There is also a significant group of invited artists this year. Among their contributions, there is a John Byrne self-portrait, and a magnificent, multi-figured fantasy picture by Steven Campbell. It is like a wild remake of one of Noel Paton’s fairy paintings, and a powerful image, but Peter Howson’s Last Supper is simply bizarre. Still, it is important the Academy is reaching out to be inclusive in this way. Among the academy members, instead of his usual dramatic colour, John Houston’s At the Coast, Morning is a schematic landscape, a tense and wiry picture that shows him reflecting more deeply than ever on the lessons of Mondrian. It is austere and austerity seems to be a bit of a thing this year. There’s a Frances Walker’s print Tide out at Vallay and a big painting by Callum Innes. More Gothic in form than his usual compositions. There is also a very fine early drawing by Derek Clarke. There is a lovely print by Joe Ganter, Cardinal Glimpses, and one of the most austerely beautiful works by Phil Reeves, Horizontal Code. It is just a sequence of circles and segments of circles, but it sings like music for the eye. Elizabeth Blackadder’s watercolour, Anemones and Hyacinths, is spare in economy, but is anything but austere in beauty. Barrier is a fantastic landscape in a quattrocento manner by Joe Fan, recently elected ARSA (associate member). Among the entries from non-members there is Scottish Icon, a fine Scotch Pie by Mhairi MacDonald-Grieg, a group of exquisite small nude paintings by Molly Garnier and a wood carving by Kenneth Raeburn. Head-Rhyme, a strong little abstract painting by John McLean, sits rather awkwardly on top of one of John Mooney’s complicated visual poems, La Mer Morte and Optical illusion. This is an exhibition of quality, beautifully hung. Web Link: www.news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=388092004