Art: Distorter

Impressionist painters usually limited themselves to visual sensations, but their successors have tried to get into painting every kind of sensation from lightheadedness to a desire for bloody murder. This is one reason why contemporary painting in general shows distortions which once belonged only to caricature or ineptitude. Last week an interesting U. S. distorter, Philip Evergood, had his first one-man show in three and a half years at Manhattan’s A. C. A. Gallery.

Born in Manhattan, Artist Evergood had his schooling at CambridgeUniversity and London’s famous Slade School. He is a hulking man of 36 with wide, intolerant brown eyes, childish brown hair and a hint of mustache. A strong draftsman with a rough sense of pictorial humor, Artist Evergood has been getting stronger and rougher right along. Last year his Art on the Beach caused fist fights in Australia where it was shown in an Evergood exhibition. Later it was purchased by Melbourne’s National Gallery.

Artist Evergood’s sensations are never any prettier than what he observes, and what he observes in Manhattan is apparently seldom pretty. When he draws a nude model he shows that her feet are dirty and her face is a lamentable part of her body. When he paints down-&-outers in a hobo “jungle” he distorts them to get an effect equivalent to the ugliness he feels. In last week’s show of 22 paintings were several in Evergood’s vein of wild, clownish humor. Sunday in Astoria and Recreation, big canvasses composed in bright, crude colors, showed city workers reveling on their day off. Artist Evergood’s distaste for rich playgirls was expressed in Beauty (see cut).