UW Gazette, January 24, 1996
     
     by Linda J. Howe
     
     Historical photography and contemporary drawings are
currently on display in UW's three art galleries.
     "Icons of Babylon" is an exhibition of 47 of Clarence
Sinclair Bull's black and white photographs taken in the
1920s, 30s and 40s. Subject matter is the famous actors and
singers from that era - for example, Joan Crawford, Ava
Gardner, Bing Crosby and Clark Gable.
     Bull is one of the first glamour photographers that
were concerned with the idea that "image is everything".
These kinds of photos were used extensively by magazines,
the only mass media available at that time.
     To depict the golden age of Hollywood, Bull used
various lighting angles and compositions. In one moody
picture, Greta Garbo stares diagonally at three lit candles.
In another, she confronts the viewer by gazing outwards. Her
face fills the frame.
     In a 1932 portrait of Jean Harlow, in a sequined dress,
and Clark Gable in a tux, Bull has them leaning back on a
rug with her head on his chest. Harlow and Gable focus their
attention off into space the viewer can't see. Because of
the back lighting and diagonal placement of the figures the
photo is dynamic and creates a sense of elegance.
     Bull is not only famous for his photos. He invented
strobe lighting for use when photographing art work. He also
developed an archival system for negatives.
     His negatives were at one time housed in the Portrait
Gallery, London, England. But Vivian and David Campbell
bought them and eventually donated them to the Art Gallery
of Hamilton. "Icons of Babylon" consists of 47 modern prints
from the 161 prints in the portfolio.
     Bull's photographs are on display in UW's Art Gallery,
Modern Languages Building. The show continues until March 2.
     Bruce Taylor, a UW fine arts professor and ceramic
sculptor, has his first exhibition of drawings on display in
the fine arts department's gallery. The exhibit is called
"Harmonic Proportions".
     He considers them to be preliminary scale-model
drawings for his sculptures. He takes his complicated first
idea and simplifies it to the basic geometric forms. Hence
the predominance of circles, squares, triangles, balls and
pyramids in his drawings.
     "Ship Shape", a charcoal, ink, graphite on paper, shows
a three-pointed black object on a series of small circles.
Surrounding the object are dotted lines, drawing angles and
arcs, and cut-outs that show views from different angles, an
obvious necessity for planning a sculpture. It represents a
folded paper boat
      Sometimes Taylor adds colour to his drawings so that
the original construction lines can no longer be seen. In
some cases he finishes the drawings after the sculptures are
finished; at other times he finishes them before he does the
sculptures.
     LeRoy, a professor of visual arts at York University
and a former chair of that department, explained in a
lecture last Thursday that to produce his scratch drawings
he first puts black gesso on paper or board. When that's dry
he applies enamel paint and scratches into that before the
enamel hardens.
     To him, this method is "better than adding charcoal.
The enamel paint runs into the lines and I lose the drawing.
After about five or ten minutes, the lines start to stay."
     Then, for about the next five minutes, he works "in a
panic" before the paint dries too much and he starts to rip
the paint as he works.
     LeRoy said in an interview that he is more interested
in line at a given moment. Neither are his drawings
resolved; nor can they be considered "finished".
     Usually when he begins working he knows what he wants
in a finished drawing. But his intentions change. Sometimes
the first line suggests other things and he lets his
subconscious take over.
     To him working in this way is a way to look at the
unconscious. You see "flashes and then it goes away". That's
similar to the way his drawing lines disappear in his
scratch drawings. In the end only about a quarter of the
drawing is left, he said.
     In his lecture LeRoy said psychology is his source and
explained some of his influences. He talked about the void
and ambiguity and the attempt to resolve these things. "To
deal with the ambiguous is the state of being," he asserted.
     Taylor's and LeRoy's are on display in the East Campus
Hall. Taylor's are in department of fine arts gallery and
LeRoy's scratch drawings are in the Artspace Gallery. Both
show continues until February 2.