Britain Goes All Out

The opening of the Festival of Britain brought with it more art shows than any one critic could digest.

P: No less than 226 works by Sculptor Henry Moore went on display--more than enough massive, passive abstractions of the human frame to prove his talent's size, and sameness.

P: Groaners for the good old days could bask in the rosy gloom of the Victoria and Albert Museum, where 456 "Masterpieces of Victorian Photography" were displayed. "There is some danger," warned the London Times solemnly, "of certain of these early photographs being overpraised." Praiseworthy or not, they brought back the past on a collodion plate.

P: A show of 96 pictures by 71-year-old Portraitist Sir Oswald Birley was made notable especially by the splendid, painted presences of Princess Elizabeth and her handsome prince in fancy regalia.

P: The Arts Council showed 24 of its favorite British moderns, including such skilled ones as Stanley Spencer, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Ivon Kitchens and Matthew Smith. Most of them, like their U.S. counterparts, find more honor at home than abroad.

P: London's Royal Academy opened its show of 1,253 mostly academic efforts with a banquet. Clement Attlee was guest of honor. Said he: "So often I find myself in acute disagreement with the art critics. So often I cannot appreciate what I am told I ought to admire." Exhibitions for the festival, he said with smiling satisfaction, were chosen by panels of artists. "Their choice may not commend itself to everybody, but at all events it cannot be attributed to the government."

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