PASMORE, because of the drama of his conversion to abs-tract art following the success of his paintings of the Thames and of city parks, overshadowed the other members of the group of abstract constructionists formed in London in 1951. With hindsight, however, we can see that the then lesser known Kenneth Martin was also a key figure. With his wife, Mary, he fully shared Pas-more's excitement in the discovery of the Section d'Or cubists and the pioneer non-figurative artists and wanted to push further, to go beyond intuition and taste, to use in his own art the laws of the natural sciences and the tested systems of harmonious proportion. He made frequent visits to the Science Museum and studied books such as D'Arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form, J. W. Power's Les Eléments de la Construction Picturale, M. Ghyka's The Geometry of Art and Life, J. Hambidge's Dynamic Symmetry in Composition. Martin discovered that nature's structural processes could be analysed mathematically, that Fibonacci's method of addition (1,1,2,3,5,8, etc.) accounted for many natural forms and that the ratio of the golden section occurred frequently in nature. He came to believe that by using the systems found in natural growth the artist could create works which were not copies of nature, but were imbued with their own organic life.

THE advantages and drawbacks of studying the history of twentieth-century art go hand in hand and derive from the very accessibility of the material under consideration. Vital as the gathering of documents may be, it is only one step in the process of assessing any given event. Equal importance should be given to the testimonials of surviving eye witnesses, even though their accounts vary and, for this reason, are often discarded.

UNTIL its purchase in 1983 of Reclining nude with necklace, dated by the artist 8th (II) October 1968 (Zervos, XXVII, 331, as Nu couché), the Tate Gallery's most recent Picasso canvas of his principal subject, the human figure, was a portrait of Marie- Therese Walter painted thirty-six years earlier. That the new acquisition (Fig.25) is the equal of its fine predecessor was demonstrated when.it was first placed on view in the same room. The Gallery is still faced with major gaps ranging across Picasso's whole career, but this purchase - the collection's only example of the work of his last twenty-one years - will delight the growing number of those who believe that till the very end of his career Picasso did not cease to produce work of major importance.

'EDINBURGH is ... busy making art history on her walls ... Ramsay Garden is now one of the town's chief showplaces .. .' wrote Margaret Armour in an 1897 Studio review of 'Mural Decoration in Scotland'. I have been able to establish that there were once upwards of eighty murals on themes of Celtic legend and history, the seasons, rebirth and regeneration, and the 'Auld Alliance' at University Hall, Ramsay Garden, Edinburgh. This Hall was a pioneer venture in student hostels devised by Sir Patrick Geddes, Professor of Botany, sociologist, town planner, and a leader in the Celtic revival movement. Geddes intended to create an appropriate milieu for 'our little scholastic colony in the heart of Edinburgh (that) symbolises a movement which while national to the core, is really cosmopolitan in its intellectual reach'.

A HITHERTO unknown, small painting in oil on canvas by Juan Gris has recently come to light (Fig.30). It is an example of his early cubist style: Pot et bouteille (Jug and bottle), 50.3 by 27 cm. Signed in the bottom right corner 'Juan Gris', it corresponds to a drawing signed and dated 1911, which is published and reproduced in my Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Peint de Juan Gris, Paris [1977], number 17a.