‘OLIVER ALLOWS HER SUBJECT TO SUGGEST HER STYLE'
Maria Callas
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Jack Mottram looks at the work of artist and critic Cordelia Oliver, whose work shown at GSA takes the Edinburgh Festival as its subject.
rtist. author and journalist Cordelia ()liver. nee
Patrick. began sketching performers at the
Citizen’s Theatre. while still a student at the Glagsow School of Art. And. after graduating. her husband George Oliver — then arts editor at the Edinburgh-based .S'catlaml's Magazine — furnished Oliver with tickets to the theatre and ballet. and access to rehearsal viewings alongside the pack of press photographers. Her lively sketches of performers in the act of performing caught the eye of the Glasgow Herald. and so Oliver began her career as an illustrator. running in parallel to her role as the Guardian’s art critic in Scotland. and work reviewing theatre for the Herald.
Illustrator is not. perhaps. the right term. The drawings collected here. which focus on the Edinburgh festival between I948 and I960. show that Oliver worked as a sort of drawing journalist. recording events and. in a sense. reviewing shows with a sketchbook and pencil. She captures the mechanics of her trade in (‘leo Lane. Amya Linden and Kenneth MacMilIan at a Press Conference. peering over the shoulder of a journalist and focusing on the flashbulbs of the photographers as much as her subjects. Other drawings are pure reportage: ‘Jerome Robbins Ballet Discussing A Crisis’ captures in a few strokes the weary. tetchy faces of the dancers. and Oliver‘s record of the Ballet Babilee in rehearsal allows just a glimpse of an exhausted dancer slumped on a chair amidst a tangle of Kleig lights.
Oliver is not. though. the arts equivalent of a court reporter. Her best work. which often ran alongside her written reviews. is of actors. singers and dancers plying
their trade. when she allows her subject to suggest her style. ‘Albert I’inney as Luther" is brimming with energy. captured in full voice in thick. deft lines. ‘Maria (‘allas In Rehearsal‘ shows ()Iiver‘s ability to switch modes. here coming close to a cat‘toontst‘s caricature. A portrait of Yehudi Menuhin is fluid. light. musical; John Betjemen. though. looks to haye been a stiff. formal reader of boetry.
The economical piece ‘Joan Sutherland as Lucia di Lammermoor' is a wonderfully evocative study of an actor inhabiting a role. and a view of the chorus in ‘I.a Somnambula‘ is a formal. stylised composition in pen and ink that belongs on a gallery wall as much as the pages of a newspaper. These drawings made at the ballet are perhaps the best of ()Iiver's work — she Uses Iimber marks to capture dancers in full flow. or homes in on a moment to focus. lovineg it seems. on the simple. precise shapes of a ballerina's limbs. At times. too. ()liver's eye for the ballet allows her to inject a little humour: one stispects. for example. that the haughty girl at the Graduation Ball of the Royal Danish Ballet did not have a glittering career ahead of her. as ()Iiver captures her forced awkward pose with a knowing wink.
This. then. is a fascinating show. evoking the early days of the Edinburgh Festival in a medium now rarely seen in print. and showing (‘ordelia ()Iiver to be as much an artist as she was a journalist.
Cordelia Oliver Festival Drawings: 1949-1960, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, until Thu 31 Aug.
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THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
* Marcel Breuer - Designs and Architecture A major retrospective of the Bauhaus graduate and Master‘s highly influential furniture designs and maquettes. The exhibition shows how his early designs drew on and developed the ideas of his teachers. before on to be a major player in the International Style, creating internationally significant buildings. The Lighthouse. Glasgow, until Sun 27 Aug.
* Cordelia Oliver With the Edinburgh Festival stealing all the limelight tor the next month or so. Glasgow School of Art has temporarily become a satellite art space for the capital. Drawings by and ex-Hera/d art critic are on display. presenting her creative take on the International Festival. See review, page 37. Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, until Thu 31 Aug.
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