U.S. ART: DARREL AUSTIN

Possibly because he comes from Portland, Ore., where the winters are rainy, Darrel Austin paints an imaginary world of endless oozy swamps and puddles, peopled with perky-looking animals and wraithlike beings half submerged in pools of water. His colors, laid on the canvas with a palette knife instead of a brush, are notable for their limpid transparency and eerie phosphorescence.

Square-shouldered Painter Austin, 34, has earned his living as an advertising-layout man and a professional sparring partner, has exhibited his paintings in public only since 1938. Since then every one of his exhibitions has been a virtual sellout, and seven leading U.S. museums have added Austins to their permanent collections. His Europa and the Bull and Lady of the Windbell are shown on this page.

According to the ancients, art had two functions: to instruct and to give pleasure. Much of today's art is instructive: it selects details of the actual world and invites contemplation of them. Another kind of modern art gives pleasure by the sheer wit, fantasy and exuberance of its forms. Darrel Austin's paintings are of this sort, and the infectious charm of his queer, metallic-sheened amphibian fairyland has recently made him one of the most popular of contemporary U.S. artists.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.