Olivier Debre

DEBRE (apparently he is a brother of the French politician of that name) appears to be a respected elder figure in France, though I cannot recall seeing his work before this event. Born in 1920 he obviously has something, or perhaps even a good deal, in common with the abstract generation of Soulages. Bazaine, Manessier, etc. which emerged in Paris in the immediate postwar years. Yet, at first glance at least, he does not resemble any of them closely; he merely share's a specific period ambience. What is on show at the Alliance Francaise is a choice of 40 graphic works - etchings, drypoints, colour prints etc., covering the output of several decades.

The earlier works have an obvious debt to Picasso, who was the ladder by which virtually every avant garde artist at the time ascended to individual freedom of expression. They are small, dense, linear and rather "tight", as artists themselves say. After that, Debre gradually moved closer to Abstract Expressionism, though not in the freewheeling, rhetorical American manner. He blossomed out as a colourist, uninhibited but tasteful, and also explored a quasi oridental vein (was Mark Tobey perhaps the main influence here? He was, after all, hugely admired by many French artists a generation ago).

A certain stylistic restlessness is plain, though much of this may be the expression of an urge to exploit as wide a range of graphic media and effects as possible. Debre exults intermittently in the higher range of colour, but he also is subtle and strong in gradations of black and white - his blacks, incidentally, are particularly velvety and alive. A series of tall, severe prints dominated by upright forms makes a fitting climax to the show and achieves a genuine monumentality. Here, I felt, Debre does show a genuine kinship with Soulages, another modern master of black and white.

Postwar Paris has, or at least had, a superb tradition of printmaking, and Debre is a reminder that this tradition is not dead yet. This is not an exhibition of startling originality, but it quietly proclaims the values of fine craftsmanship, taste in the positive sense, and of having something individual to say without shouting it fortissimo down the boulevards.