January round-up

The abstract painter John McLean celebrates his 70th birthday this year, and the enterprising Poussin Gallery (Block K, 13 Bell Yard Mews, 175 Bermondsey Street, SE1) has mounted a show of his recent prints in recognition (until 14 February). McLean is an inventive printmaker and when paired with a master craftsman, as he is here — work produced at the Cambridge studio of Kip Gresham — the results are first rate. McLean’s introduction to the little catalogue accompanying the show is a fascinating and lucid account of his techniques, which range from screenprinted monoprints to carborundum etchings via drypoints and woodcuts. They come in different sizes and prices (from about £400 to £3,000), vibrant images dancing with a variety of emotions, most of them uplifting. Taking an apparently simple approach to the relationship of roughly geometric shapes, McLean stacks and disperses his wedges and blocks of vivid colour in wonderfully subtle and audacious ways. A delight, but check opening times — Wednesday to Saturday, afternoons only — to avoid disappointment.

Up in North London, the Ben Uri Gallery has mounted another of its remarkable survey shows (until 19 April). Entitled Forced Journeys, it’s a study of artists in exile in Britain, c.1933–45, dealing with those mostly of German and Austrian descent who fled the Nazi peril. It comprises some 90 works, including ceramics and posters along with paintings and drawings, by artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Jankel Adler, Hans Feibusch, and Else and Ludwig Meidner. One of the main subjects is internment, as émigrés were automatically interned for some months on their arrival in Britain however distinguished they might be as artists. Schwitters, for instance, was interned on the Isle of Man, later settling in the Lake District, where he lived until his death in 1948. There are a number of exhibits that relate directly to the experience of internment, including a series of drawings by Fred Uhlman from observation and imagination, verging on the savage in their incisive linearity and satire.

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