This past summer the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., mounted a show of works by sixteen contemporary European artists who use representational subject matter. Joe Shannon, Chief of the Department of Exhibits and Design at the Hirshhorn, organized “Representation Abroad” and wrote the catalogue.[1] Shannon’s entries on the individual artists are the work of” someone who clearly loves painting and sculpture, and he’s anxious to have us judge the work included on its own merits. In the preface he bends over backward declaring this is not a thesis show. Reading the catalogue, I had the feeling Shannon sees the lack of a thesis as a point in his favor; he believes the unpolemical selection of artists in “Representation Abroad” will have a special appeal for people who are turned off by glitz and hype. “Some of these artists,” Shannon writes, “are surely for the ages; some, sadly, will be forgotten. As always, time will tell.” Shannon doesn’t promise us the moon. He just wants to get together some artists that he likes, and there’s surely nothing wrong in such a simple idea.

Who wouldn’t be happy with a show of sixteen really interesting European painters and sculptors? But when I left the Hirshhorn, I had the same impression as when I’d arrived: that there aren’t sixteen—or even half that number—important representational artists left working in Europe. The principal players here—Avigdor Arikha, Tibor Csernus, David Hockney, and Rodrigo Moynihan—have all been seen in New York, as have