LEROY NEIMAN ON SAFARI

Neiman's sojourn in the Kenyan savannah yielded plenty of material for his trademark party-colored canvases—lion, elephant, cape buffalo, rhino, cheetah, and the like—creatures who emerge here from a throng of oily daubs, drips, and palette knifings. But these works feel almost too spontaneous, as if dashed off in an obligatory manner. More satisfying are the pen-and-ink and sepia works, which are less self-conscious and display a more fluid and less facile line. Here he captures both aura and gesture: a splay- legged giraffe grazing on grass, a toe-stepping warthog, zebras at full tilt. There are plenty of photos of the man himself— schmoozing with the Maasai, communing with rhinos, forever sketching—to punctuate the predictable text, which features a lot of huffing and puffing about the mingled fantasy and danger one encounters in a sweeping landscape, before, of course, one toddles back to camp for champagne and fois gras. (100 color illustrations)