Iain Gale on exhibitions

Gerald Laing is a much maligned man. In their reviews of his retrospective exhibition at Edinburgh Fruit Market Gallery three years ago, the critics seemed united in their disapproval and 30 years work was dismissed out of hand as they condemned his recent stylistic developments towards an increasingly smooth figuration. But a look at the current show of his prints at Whitford Fine Art reveals an artist who does not deserve such summary treatment.

In 1968, while resident in New York, Laing made a series of screenprints entitled "Starlets, Skydivers and Dragsters", based on paintings he had made over the previous five years. These 17 images have today lost none of their impact and still assault the senses with impressive boldness.

Lang's skydivers leap from boxes and funnels trailing a Lichtenstein- esque trail of psychedelic smoke. His drag-racers are pulled up by huge, sunburst parachutes. But it is the starlet series which provides us with the most enduring images. Here, surely, are some of the all-time icons of British Pop Art.

Tracy, Sandra, Francine, Stacy and the anonymous Starlet, her bikini top dissolving in a trail of blue and yellow paint, pout and pose in their newsprint-dot monochrome; mass-produced love goddesses, transfigured by artistic intervention. And here, too, is their high priestess, Brigitte Bardot, her face seen through a target - that mouth, those eyes. Laing offers us the essence of a decade in an eloquent homage to style and sex.

Whitford Fine Art, 6 Duke St, London SW1. From Thur to 18 Oct

Left: detail from Gerald Laing's 'Third Skydiver', 1968, Silkscreen Print