So if you’ve taken my advice and wandered up to Cork Street in London’s Mayfair to look at the giant jelly babies, please take a few minutes to have a look at the Redfern Gallery. The main show at the moment is a series of very simple work by Linda Karshan. Black charcoal grids on a white background, they have a certain atmosphere but this is art for a palate more refined than mine, I fear.
In the small back room, though, is a show of ten or twelve linocuts by Sybil Andrews. Primarily from the late 20s and early 30s, these pieces are tremendously great. They’re what I would have called deco-inspired until I was told that we’re not supposed to use the term art deco so indiscriminately. Apparently we should say “machine age” these days. Actually, I’m not unhappy about that because there is something decidedly machinic about these pieces, even when the topics are soundly organic (you know, horses jumping over a hedge, that kind of thing): the whole picture is active. They’re jagged skirmishes of shape and colour, like a more humane kind of futurism. I love them.