A New Spirit in Painting

"A New Spirit in Painting, the Royal Academy's major winter exhibition for 1981, is the first international contemporary painting exhibition to take place in London since the famous 54/64 exhibition at the Tate Gallery 16 years ago, and is, indeed, the first important international painting exhibition to take place anywhere in the world for at least a decade. The exhibition includes some 150 paintings by 38 artists, without regard to their age or nationality. It has been put together by a team of selectors - the Royal Academy's Exhibition Secretary, Norman Rosenthal, Christos M. Joachimides, a well-known German art critic, and Nicholas Serota, Director of The Whitechapel Art Gallery. The exhibition includes the work of three generations of painters: firstly, the painters of an older generation who, in the opinion-of the organisers, have sustained a highly convincing style in their most recent work. These include Balthus and Jean Hélion from France, Francis Bacon from Great Britain, Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston from the United States and Matta, the Chilean painter who lives in Italy, Paris and London. The core of the exhibition contains work by painters who have a considerable body of work behind them, but who also, the organisers believe, are working consistently and with great imagination. These artists are principally from the United States, Great Britain, West Germany and Italy and include: Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, Robert Ryman, Brice Marden (United States); Lucian Freud, R.B. Kitaj, David Hockney, Frank Auerbach, Howard Hodgkin, Malcolm Morley (Great Britain); Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz, A.R. Penck, K.H. Hödicke, Bernd Koberling and Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Gotthard Graubner, (West Germany); Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis and Pier Paolo Calzolari (Italy) and Per Kirkeby (Denmark). The work of about twelve younger painters is also included, and it is expected that this will establish a continuing optimism for new and original painting. These painters include Alan Charlton, Bruce McLean, Julian Schnabel, Anselm Kiefer, Dieter Hacker, Rainer Fetting, Sandra Chia and Mimmo Paladino. The organisers have included in the exhibition a group of Picasso's last paintings, as it is felt that these works deserve to be reassessed in the light of some of the most exciting developments in contemporary painting. A New Spirit in Painting has a strong emphasis on new and highly expressive figurative painting, which the organisers feel offers some of the most exciting solutionsto the problems of painting today. The catalogue is primarily a record of the exhibition, which illustrates all 145 works in full page, including 96 colour plates. There are also short essays by the organisers and full biographies of all the artists." --