Crowd control

Andrew Lambirth

Saturday, 11th June 2005

Proceed now to the main gallery, III, for the assorted assault of the big guns: three new paintings by Kitaj on the subject of memory and old age, a vast pencil, ink and watercolour drawing by Leonard McComb of rock and sea at Anglesey, Eileen Cooper in blue mood in what looks like a wild-life room, a predominantly black-and-white group of water paintings by Anthony Whishaw, and strong doses of inspired colour and pattern by Albert Irvin at one end, and Adrian Berg at the other. As usual, some works sandbag you, others lie in wait. Gallery IV is notable for such Summer Exhibition stalwarts as Mary Fedden, Freddy Gore and Elizabeth Blackadder. There’s a powerful tribute to the late Peter Coker, which includes his last oil, a luscious near-abstract, and a Butcher Shop painting loaned by Sheffield. Here, too, is Maggi Hambling’s fierce indictment of war, ‘Lebanon’, and Jean Cooke’s radical fish painting, ‘Fancy a Swim?’

Gallery V contains another tribute, this time to the late Norman Adams, quondam Keeper of the Academy, and an artist of rare lyrical and religious vision. Two of the RA’s elder statesmen, Leonard Rosoman and Anthony Eyton, are shown to good effect, in watercolour and pastel respectively. Jennifer Durrant’s small but doughty abstracts (she has a solo show at Art First in Cork Street until 22 June) hold the attention, while Peter Archer’s ‘The Chimney Field II’ commands the usual respect. Gallery VI, however, seems to be the alien heart of this year’s summer show, which is devoted to multiple images. Here be monsters: strange things by Colin Self and Michael Craig-Martin, Adam Dant and Dan Hays. Even Tracey Emin has got in somehow.

Without the input of such valued and distinguished Academicians as John Craxton, and awash with overblown works by Hon. RAs, this year’s Summer Exhibition is something of a let-down. Still, there’s a magnificent Sandra Blow — a large painting called ‘Span’, which opens out like a secret being unwrapped — and a poignant Allen Jones profile sculpture, three vigorous abstracts by Henry Mundy, a couple of Michael Kidners, and the memorable juxtaposition of Alex Ramsay and Stephen Chambers, all in the Lecture Room. In the Central Hall there’s Caro, Hall and Carter, not to mention the first ever sculpture by Gus Cummins (he calls it ‘a two-and-a-half dimensional painting’). And how can I conclude without mentioning Gillian Ayres and Ann Christopher, shortlisted at the time of writing for the £25,000 Wollaston Award? Then, with over 1,300 exhibits, there are the hundreds of really quite good works there’s no room even to list. As exhibitions go, it must be one of the oddest mixtures currently on offer, and, as such, it’s still worth a visit.