Exhibition Review 001

This review, written by Albert Garrett, of Clifford Hall's solo exhibition at the Wilton Gallery, London, was published in ART NEWS AND REVIEW magazine, on October 24th 1955.

Clifford Hall by Albert Garrett

Clifford Hall is exhibiting recent paintings and drawings at the Wilton Gallery. He is an artist with a solid reputation. His art is an attempt to find the solution to the almost insoluble problem of relationships between the "seen" and the "known." In this exhibition he is showing us that there are still new ways of seeing the figure without disrupting the visual world, or calling on political or social protest, or projecting the hells of private encounter. His art is elevating and until recently this quality was at a high premium. Whether or not this quality ever returns to fashion, Hall's paintings are very desirable works to live with; they will stand scrutiny and need it.

Their subtleties, clearly seen and finely registered, will appeal to the fine emotions. There is a level of aesthetic expression which rides above the fascinating rippling surface of left-wing experiment, and forms a central tradition or main stream. In this tradition, Hall has made his contribution and in it has carved a place.

His painting 'Girl in a Blue Slip' should find its way into a public gallery. Such is the quality of this impressive painting, composed, designed, and drawn as it is to contain and relate the figure within its environment and frame with such utter economy of drawing and subtlety of colour. It tends to disarm the pen, confined to review. These qualities are also apparent in the 'Fighting Bull' and 'Death of a Bull Fighter'. Their dramatic action has been analysed and arrested within a taut pictorial structure. Acute observation and summarised form is the result of a continuous process of refinement, and produces the informed generalisation which adds scale to a painting in excess of its physical dimensions.