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Robyn Denny (Elkon, 1063 Madison Avenue at 81st Street): This is quite the best group of paintings that Mr. Denny, an English painter of rigorously designed color ab stractions, has shown in New York. In these new paintings, a single field of color occu pies almost, but not quite, the entire surface of the pie ture. Along its bottom edge, a small, neat structure of re lated colors rises like an austere architectural model or a schematized landscape. The effect is, generally, both luminous and cerebral, sug gesting “real” light and a conception of light at the same time. Most successful, I think, are the pictures in which color is held to the closest values: “View from the Blue 2” and “Give.”

Jane Wasey (Kraushaar, 1055 Madison Avenue at 80th Street): Connoisseurs of the carver’s art will derive a great deal of pleasure Vont this , exhibition of sculpture executed in the last few years. Although Miss Wasey includes several fine torsos, carved in wood, the main focus of the exhibition is a poetic abstraction, and she is strongest in the stone carvings. The trouble, alas, is that these stone sculptures are not very original in their formal conception. The crafts manship is superb, indeed eloquent in itself, but the forms are too often the cliches of modern sculptural history. Her strongest work is based, I think, on her “Sea Form” motif, and the white marble “Sea Form II” is, assuredly, a work of both strength and elegance.

Bob Duran (Bykert, 24 East 81st Street): We’ve been hearing a good deal about the revival of so-called “lyric abstraction” lately, and Mr. Duran’s paintings must, I suppose, be considered part of this phenomenon. Liquid color is stained onto the can vas in carefully arranged shapes that touch, overlap and generally arrange them selves in attractive decorative patterns. The result is paint ing that is both pleasant to look at and very lightweight in its general effect.