Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 157

5 5 NYU ready to close Town Hall Aug. 31 By Bill Kaufman New York University has set an Aug. 31 deadline for the closing of Town Hall, the well known but financially hard-pressed landmark for the performing arts on West 43rd Street. The auditorium, considered acoustically excellent, has been struggling for its existence in recent years. In a move to consolidate and concentrate more on its academic activities, NYU said that it hopes to get out of operating the hall by Aug.

31 because it is a severe financial and management drain on the school. The university's vice president for administration, William von Raab, said NYU was seeking "a responsible group whom we feel can maintain Town Hall suitably and who can take over full responsibility for its operation." An NYU spokesman said the cost to the university for operat- By but been on to it is the full ing the hall ranges from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. other tenant, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. Most of Town Hall's programs these days are in There is virtually no chance that the building its 5:30 PM "Interlude" series aimed at after-work would be sold or razed, Von Raab said. "Our main audiences, plus occasional late-morning events and concern is for the New York University Club, a few other presentations, averaging about 15 a which has been there for more than 20 years," he month.

In its heydey, Town Hall operated on a fully said. "It's primarily a matter of shutting down the booked schedule. The only major talent currently auditorium." The club's expenses are far less than booked is singer Lainie Kazan for May 24. they would be elsewhere or if the university did not The decline of the once-popular hall, scene of own the building. many important New York debuts, has been attrib- Von Raab said there have been several nibbles uted to the opening of Lincoln Center's Alice Tully by organizations and concert groups interested in Hall more than 10 years ago, as well as the seamy taking over Town Hall, "but nothing really significharacter of the Times Square neighborhood.

Jesse cant at this time." He added, "We intend not to do C. Reese, Town Hall's executive director, said, "I anything rash. Town Hall was given to us as a comwould prefer to see the auditorium retained as a munity trust." Reese said that what the auditorium concert hall. It has a legacy in the city." needed to survive was "anyone with a viable board Two upper stories of the Town Hall building are of directors who could develop sufficient funds to occupied by the New York University Club and an- keep things going, as well as strong leadership." ART al expressions of serenity By Malcolm Preston The ever-endless, ever-changing and subtle colors and shapes of unspoiled woodlands are what Sandra Benny Vaux paints. But even though nature is her theme, her work is a long way from being naturalistic.

More internally expressive than externally realistic, her visions of forests infiltrated by smoky lights are, in a sense, abstractions, essences of Vaux' own lyrical responses to trees, light-struck foilage and that special serenity one finds deep in the woods. In her current show, on view at Gallery 63 East in Cold Spring Harbor, Vaux shows a handsome group of mixed-media works. Done on paper with a combination of graphite and thin oil washes, the pictures are a continuation in style and substance of the work seen in her Adelphi University show several years ago. Her color remains misty and sensuous, and her forms are broad, yet flowing. In "Horizontal Woods With Slanted Light Shaft," the tone is a shimmering, diffuse green which envelops the trees in airy lightness.

"Rose Wood" is shadowy but warm in feeling. And while one easily recognizes the forest motif, the landscape seems to dissolve in blurred sunlight and the fleeting pattern of tree trunks and leaves. Newsday Photo by John H. Cornell Jr. Woods 1977' by Sandra Benny Vaux Japanese prints on view would like to scatter these still lifes and landscapes to abprints before viewers as Shelley stracts -which represent three decwould have strewn his poems be- ades of postwar Japanese printfore the West Wind," wrote Abby making.

Weed Grey for a catalog which will "Contemporary Japanese Prints" accompany an exhibition of 20 con- will be at the Levittown Public Litemporary Japanese prints making brary in March; at Elmont Public a year-long tour of Nassau County Library in April; at Henry Walpublic libraries. The traveling dinger Memorial Library, Valley show will be on display until Feb. Stream, in May; at Massapequa 26 at the Peninsula Public Library Public Library in June; at East Lawrence. The selection of Meadow Public Library in July; at in prints drawn from the Ben and Freeport Memorial Library in SepAbby Grey Foundation Collection tember; at Hicksville Public Liof Contemporary Asian and Middle brary in October; at Jericho Public Eastern Art--is on loan from New Library in November; at Long York University's Grey Art Gal- Beach Public Library in December, lery and Study Center. The exhibi- and at Seaford Public Library in tion includes color woodcuts -from January.

'Visitor' is one of the woodcuts on display. The larger of Vaux' papers are conventionally rectangular in shape, which makes them more readily perceived as landscapes. But in the smaller works, Vaux employs the tondo shape. And somehow, in the circular form, the landscape notion is not quite as clear. That is especially true of two small, circular silk-screen prints.

Both are made from the same stencils, but different color relationships give each a distinctive flavor. Both have an Art Nouveau quality that stems from the sensuous, rather decorative treatment of the trees and foilage. But even in the smaller works, such as "Benevolent Woods" and "Somebody's Woods," Vaux maintains that special elusive, translucent, ephemeral quality that I remember in her earlier show. Like those earlier pictures, these recent landscapes have a dream-like aspect. But there is more, too.

These essences of woods remind us of the delicacy of nature and, in a way, ask 'us to cherish and respect and preserve our forests, and, as Vaux herself says, not obliterate from our horizons for the sake of the 'American The show will remain at Gallery 63 East (130 Main St.) through Feb. 26. 1978 10 FEBRUARY WEDNESDAY, 'AVOSMEN 58A.