Earliest Known Review of Allan Hart's Paintings

                Earliest Known Review
                 of Allan Hart's Paintings
                          Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1970
                 "A Critical Guide to the Galleries"
                      by Henry J. Seldis and William Wilson

                                   La Cienega

Allan Hart's pictures look as if they were painted by Macbeth's
weird sisters, murky middleground landscapes full of ominous
events. In one a man stands next to a polar bear whose double
floats in the sky, Creepy twins, scarier versions of Laugh-In's dirty
old man walk apart in a landscape that erupts into flame. A pre-
view look suggested a maturing talent and a remarkable change of
pace in the usual far-out-far-in look of the Wilder Gallery.The exhi-
bition also contains Pop-like portraits of early Americans, small
paintings and a bedside table painted with clouds. All that
suggests a young artist gestating rapidly, producing work in varied
directions to find out more precisely who he is.

I certainly hope Allan Hart turns out as consistently magical as he
appears in that painting were a dismembered torso floats in deli-
cate tatters above the landscape.(Nicholas Wilder Gallery, 814 N.
La Cienega; through June 30.)    William Wilson

     A Critque of William Wilson's Review
                                     by Allan Hart


   First of all, William Wilson probably never painted a painting in
his entire life. Secondly, my dark paintings (not "pictures") are from
my subconcious and have absolutely nothing to do with Shake-
speare's "Macbeth's weird sisters".
     As for Wilson's "Creepy twins, scarier versions of Laugh-In's
dirty old man", the man is an idiot, has been watching too much
television and shouldn't be writing reviews on art. The painting (not
"picture") Wilson is refering to is "The Artist and His Sculpture"(#25)
painted in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, which was partly
painted out of my subconcious and has to do with the Vietnam War
(therefore the explosions in the landscape); the fact that both my
twin brother, Brian, and I resisted the Vietnam War with a passion,
and us being twins ("The Artist and His Sculpture" are the two mir-
ror image figures walking away from each other in the landscape.).
     At the time, Brian and I had moved apart from each other and
lived in different studios in different locations. In 1969, Brian and I
were in our early twenties and we were certainly not "creepy" as
Wilson states. We actually appeared more angelic in real life and
in the painting we appear more pensive and brooding than "creepy
twins, scarier versions of Laugh-In's dirty old man" as Wilson states.
Wilson's description is absolutely ridiculous.
I actually do not "appear in that painting where a dismembered
torso floats in delicate tatters above the landscape". This painting,
which I titled "Fresh Air" (#22), is actually about the Vietnam War,
where "dismembered torsos" were everywhere.
Wilson was correct in two of his perceptions when he stated:"A
preview look suggested a maturing talent and a remarkable change
of pace in the usual far-out-far-in look of the Wilder Gallery." and
"All that suggests a young artist gestating rapidly, producing work
in varied directions to find out more precisely who he is."
So much for art reviews. I certainly did not allow it to effect me,
one way or the other, nor did I allow it to charter my course.
   After nearly forty (40) years, I may have lost my compass, but, I
am still afloat, possibly with one oar. My brother says that the early
Slavs spent thousands of years floating around in small cicular
goat-skin boats with one oar. I suppose that I have "come full
circle".

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