UPTOWN

ELAINE DE KOONING--Graham, 1014 Madison Ave. at 78th. "He had a golden look, his hair was unexpectedly ruddy, his eyes were very large and impressive --he seemed larger than life." This was Elaine de Kooning's impression of President Kennedy when she sketched him at Palm Beach in December 1962, and it is the likeness she caught in the resulting 15 portraits, all larger than life. Through Dec. 31.

ANDY WARHOL--Castelli, 4 East 77th.

With Brillo, Heinz and Campbell Soup boxes piled to the ceiling. Warhol last spring turned the gallery into a supermarket. This season it looks more like a florist's. One hundred canvases, popping with big blossoms in every conceivable color, cover Castelli's walls. Through Dec. 16.

FRITZ BULTMAN--Tibor de Nagy, 149 East 72nd. Bultman is equally at home with painting and sculpture; an exhibition of both gives a wide-screen view of his work. His bronzes are small, allusive (Speaking, Hearing) abstractions that channel light through their fragile petals, while his paintings feature big, bold S-curves that sweep around the canvas in red, orange and black. Through Jan. 2.

PAUL HORIUCHI--Nordness, 831 Madison Ave. at 69th. This artist arrived at an esthetic blend of East and West by drawing by turns on Sumi-ink training in his native Japan, the tutelage of Seattle Zen Master Takizaki and, finally, the abstract expressionism of Mark Tobey (who selected this show). Horiuchi's abstract collages, composed of torn bits of rice and mulberry paper stained in misty shades of grey, evoke not so much nature's shapes as its weathery moods--sleet, snow, rain.

Through Dec. 19.

GRACE HARTIGAN--Jackson, 32 East 69th.

The Hunted is a canvas galloping with the frenzy of a chase: black lines crack through foggy depths, crimson waves stain the atmosphere, and a palpable blue river creates cover for an eye that lurks in shadows. Ten new paintings as well as gouaches. Through Dec. 19.

MANOLO--Schoelkopf, 825 Madison Ave.

at 68th. During their youth in Barcelona, Manolo buddied with Picasso, later followed him to Paris. But while cubism whirled around him. Manolo turned to classicism, recalled his native Catalonia with slim-limbed toreros and squat, chunky senoritas. On display are 23 stone and bronze sculptures, plus drawings and watercolors. Through Dec. 24.

TOSHIO ODATE--Radich, 818 Madison Ave. at 68th. This young Japanese New Yorker chins oak and walnut into shapes that look like giant snails or entwined cobras, extracts exotic highlights from the grain of woods. Through Dec. 31.

WILLIAM KING--Dintenfass, 18 East 67th.

Last season King's bronzes bore the imprint of burlap, which left his witty compositions wearing a woven look. This time he leaves out the bronze, just drapes the burlap over aluminum tubing frames. The gawkish, gangling figures--some of them ceiling-tall--would be funny sacks indeed if they didn't look so sad. Through Jan. 2.

JAPANESE FOLK ART--Alan, 766 Madison Ave. at 66th. While U.S. folk art was often the spare-time byproduct of whit-tiers and Sunday painters, the Japanese counterpart was work done by professional craftsmen. The trouble is that they worked with fragile materials; only a few have withstood decay for ten centuries--the time spanned by this show. The Nipponese knack for simplicity can be seen in a shop sign showing a pipe, comb and pen outlined in relief, a roly-poly doll in wood that looks like porcelain, and a black monkey tiptoe-balanced on a peach.

Through Dec. 24.

LEONARD OCHTMAN--Lewison, 35 East 64th. When American painters began nibbling at French impressionism around the turn of the century, Ochtman became an early gourmet. His brush dimpled yellow-greens and creamy pinks around the canvas, captured the sun and haze of verdant New England. Twenty-eight oils. Through Dec. 12.

MIDTOWN

HENRIETTE WYETH--Portraits, 136 East 57th. Still lifes and portraits, including one of Painter Andrew Wyeth for a TIME cover (Dec. 27, 1963), display some of the same fidelity to visual fact and the sensitivity to reach beyond it that have made her brother one of the U.S.'s foremost realists. Through Dec. 5.

MATTA--Frumkin, 41 East 57th. Malta's wiry bronze abstractions, his first excursion into sculpture, are so complex that it took years for foundrymen to devise a way to cast them. His Couples and Person-nages, descendants of a "clan" series originally conceived for a UNESCO project, are presided over by a six-foot spidery Grand Personnage. Through Jan. 9.

ANTHONY CARO--Emmerich, 41 East 57th. Constructionist Sculptor Caro, a Henry Moore alumnus, strews I-beams, rails and steel plates around the floor, or stands them up like stilts, but all are bolted and welded to suggest movements and moods. Through Dec. 19.

THREE GENERATIONS OF 20TH CENTURY ART --Janis, 15 East 57th. An exhibition that includes most of the big names of modern art and examples of every movement from cubism to new realism manages not only to show continuity, but proves that art, too, repeats itself. Through Dec. 26.

FIVE SCULPTORS--Loeb, 12 East 57th.

Sculptures by some of the best in the business--Miguel Berrocal, Cesar, Jean Ipousteguy, James Metcalf, Robert Muller --and drawings that help explain them.

Through Dec. 19.

DAN FLAVIN--Green, 15 West 57th. Artists have always been fascinated by light, so it was almost inevitable that one of them would come along to exploit the man-made kind. Flavin's bulbs are fluorescent because he is "interested in making line as intense as possible." His red, green and white fixtures streak across the wall in long diagonals, stand in vertical groups, cast shadows and create third colors. All other lights in the gallery are out, and the place is filled with a mesmeric chiaroscuro. Through Dec. 12.

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART--Parsons, 24 West 57th. This contemporary pointillist lays color over color until the impasto is as thick and gooey as frosting. Pousette-Dart's titles reveal that the source of his imagery is the heavens, and several works do recall night skies filled with millions of flickering lights. Through Dec. 19.

MARTIAL RAYSSE--Tolas, 15 East 55th.

France's stellar practitioner of pop art goes all out with plastic, neon lights and fluorescent paint--"materials of our age" --because he wants his works to look brand-new so that they will "make people happy." He is certainly entertaining. In Suzanne and the Elders, a lovely nymph, painted on canvas, lies basking in the woods, while French New Realist Arman woos her in a movie continuously projected on the painting. Through Dec. 24.

MUSEUMS

GUGGENHEIM--Fifth Ave. at 89th. Alexander Calder's sprawling stabiles and spirited mobiles, along with just about everything else he has concocted in 40 years chock-full of work--wire sculpture, jewelry, toys, paintings--are living it up at the Guggenheim. Through Jan. 10.

METROPOLITAN--Fifth Ave. at 82nd. The Met's $2,300,000 Rembrandt, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, is still top draw. But visitors can also see how artists across five centuries interpreted Aesop in a showing of 50 works based on the fables, and inspect a newly installed, colonnaded marble patio that will eventually house the museum's prints and drawings.

FINCH COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART--62 East 78th. A show called "Artists Select" pairs young hopefuls with contemporary painters who have arrived. The college's other attraction is a 95-work loan exhibition of 16th to 18th century Genoese painters. Through Dec. 15 and Feb. 1.

GALLERY OF MODERN ART--Columbus Circle at 59th. Before his death ten years ago, Reginald Marsh won a reputation as a visual Boswell of burlesque, the Bowery and Coney Island. The museum shows his paintings, drawings and prints, as well as a retrospective of France's Jean Helion, who switched from highly regarded abstractions to so-so realistic paintings.

Through Jan. 17 and Dec. 27 respectively.

MUSEUM OF PRIMITIVE ART--15 West 54th. The sophisticated shapes and rhythms of African sculpture that enthralled Matisse, Picasso and Braque 50 years ago make fascinating viewing today. More than 130 works from 30 West African tribes include Senufo and Dogon masks, antelope headpieces and Benin court jewelry. Through Feb. 7.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART--11 West 53rd. On view are a photographic survey of the way in which architecture develops without the aid of architects, recently acquired paintings by Morris Louis, Paul Jenkins, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons and--Jack Tworkov, and a retrospective of Budapest-born Andre Kertesz, considered the pioneer of modern photography.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFTS--29 West 53rd. An artistic sign of Christmas is the seasonal outpouring of "creative playthings"--the sort of finger exercisers that artists secretly dream up to amuse themselves with all year, but only break out for public display during the holidays.

Santa's helpers this time: William Accorsi (toy sculptures), Charles Eames (music machines), Don Drumm (tin-can people), and others. Through Jan. 17.

PIERPONT MORGAN LIBRARY--29 East 36th. Thirty-five Rembrandt etchings include nearly all of the landscapes he did in the medium, and eight self-portraits, ranging from a view of the uncombed but aspiring artist at 24 to the profound self-analysis that marked his later views of himself (through Jan. 16). The library also has a fine selection of old master drawings, highlighted by a rare Leonardo.

Through Jan. 2.

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