Summer round-up

Andrew Lamirth on what's on at London galleries

Over the road is a tribute to Robert Motherwell entitled Open (at Bernard Jacobson Gallery, 6 Cork Street, W1, until 28 August), which also launches a book of the same title (21 Publishing, £40). Motherwell doesn’t get the praise that is routinely handed-out to other big-league Abstract Expressionists, such as Rothko and Pollock, but he’s a great artist nevertheless. The Americans resented his deep interest in European culture, while his own diversity of practice prevented him from being typecast and easily assimilated. The group of paintings at Jacobson’s includes a couple of exquisite small canvases, ‘Red Open’ and ‘Open #138’, as well as much larger works, such as the magisterial ‘Open #15 in Cerulean Blue with White Line’. Heart-lifting.

Tempera painting is a laborious technique involving the mixing of pigment with fresh eggs, and tends not to be much practised nowadays. However, there are still devotees of its subtle science, such as Helen Clapcott, who paints Stockport, and two very different artists, who currently have shows in London. Peter Godwin (born 1953) is an Australian enjoying his first UK exhibition (at Nevill Keating McIlroy, 5 Pickering Place, SW1, until 10 July). He paints rather beautiful still-life interiors in a gestural, brushy manner, using tempera as never before, with scant regard for the precise effects usually associated with the medium. David Tindle (born 1932) is an old tempera hand showing new paintings (at Redfern Gallery, 20 Cork Street, W1, until 2 July). His quiet accumulations of colour and texture have a more typical serenity and poise. An instructive comparison.

Finally, two shows by established favourites of this column: George Rowlett (born 1941) and Craigie Aitchison (born 1926). Rowlett is showing his rarely seen flower paintings, as well as new views of East Kent, the Thames and Wast Water in the Lake District (at Art Space Gallery, 84 St Peter’s Street, N1, until 25 July), while Aitchison will show a selection of recent work (at Timothy Taylor Gallery, 15 Carlos Place, W1, 9 July to 28 August). Both are involved with very individual forms of figuration: Rowlett with landscape done en plein air in luscious cascades of thick paint, Aitchison with thin stains of brilliant colour, almost scrubbed into the canvas. Aitchison’s subjects are primarily still-life and religious pictures, images distilled to their essential forms; Rowlett’s are great, seething paintscapes packed with incident but drawn with a fineness of touch belied by the large gestures. Both are adornments to our visual heritage and both deserve not only close attention, but also our respect and affection.