Art: Private View - Prunella Clough to 26 Sept Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

Richard Ingleby
Saturday 07 August 1999 00:02 BST
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Looking back at the recent history of British art, there are a few artists who stand out for the depth and constancy of their contribution over the last 50 years - artists who arrived on the scene in the immediate post-war years and who still seem to be making work that has a place in the modern world. Lucian Freud is one, Eduardo Paolozzi another - and so is Prunella Clough. She hasn't quite achieved the fame of some of her more celebrated contemporaries, but she's well loved and deservedly respected by her peers, and as time goes by she looks more and more a special figure. Not a major one perhaps, but one whose quiet, consistent approach sums up many of the best qualities of 20th-century British art.

Clough has always resisted the idea of retrospectives, so opportunities to take a long look at her career have been rare, but a new exhibition in Cambridge reveals an unswerving continuity of thought and purpose. It isn't quite a retrospective, though the work spans more than 50 years; rather, it is an exploration of certain themes and links from one decade to the next - the sense of surprise that she brings to the ordinary things, objects or landscapes that provide the starting points for her very personal brand of abstract painting. Clough's is a quiet voice, but one that is constantly convincing.

Kettle's Yard, Castle Street, Cambridge (01223 352124) to 26 Sept

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