Letter: Duty to explain

Sir: Andrew Graham-Dixon's opposition to explanatory captions at the St Ives Tate (29 June) is not shared by this reader nor, I suspect, by many others with an amateur interest in modern art, who need all the help they can get to enjoy fully works of art that have a lot to offer, be they mediocre or Matisse.

Taken to its logical conclusion, if a work can (perhaps that ought to be 'should') speak for itself, both the name of the artist and the date of the painting are irrelevant, as is the job of an art critic.

Yours faithfully,

AXEL BURROUGH

London, N7

1 July