UPTOWN

CHARLES HINMAN--Feigen, 24 East 81st. In his first one-man show, Hinman makes the old four-cornered canvas look pretty square. He stretches cotton duck over plywood frames in shapes that writhe up the wall, dangle in three-dimensional blocks, and seem to jump with shock waves of hard-edged color. Through Jan. 2.

ALBERTCHRIST--JANER-Krasner, 1061 Madison Ave. at 80th. Working in watercolor on rice paper, the dean of Pratt Institute's art school marks his horizons with a single stroke, lets specks of light seep through waves of cool blues and greens. Through Jan. 2.

KENNETH EVETT--Kraushaar, 1055 Madison Ave. at 80th. Cornell Painting Professor Evett hails from Colorado, evokes the rugged Rocky Mountains in his sumi-ink paintings. One, called Gorge, is a yawning cavity that trips the viewer into a head-on tumble into deep space. Through Dec. 31.

GEORGES ROUAULT--Perls, 1016 Madison Ave. at 78th. Rouault spent nearly a decade painting this set of 54 small oils on the Passion of Christ, then mounted each like a jewel on a luminous blue-green mat. This is the first time the rare religious masterworks, up for sale at $2,000,000, have been shown in New York. Through Dec. 19.

EDGAR DEGAS--Thaw, 50 East 78th. Nine oil monotypes and pastels, first shown in Paris in 1893 and all but forgotten since, record Degas' abstract impressions of the countryside as he jogged along in a carriage. Through Dec. 31.

COBRA GRAPHICS--Lefebre, 47 East 77th. The COBRA group at their graphic best: Henry Heerup telling Danish folk tales in hand-colored linoleum cuts; Belgium's Pierre Alechinsky adorning his droll personnages with cryptic phrases; Corneille finding poetry in Central Park and the Flight of the Birds. Asger Jorn, as his 1939 etchings prove, was a master of graphics at 25; though his colors have ripened, poignant little faces still peer from bright infernos of orange and yellow. Through Jan. 9.

THE SCULPTOR AND THE ARCHITECT--Staempfli, 47 East 77th. Staempfli celebrates some happy unions of sculpture and architecture, notably those of Harry Bertoia and Minoru Yamasaki, Antoine Pevsner and Eero Saarinen, George Rickey and Victor Gruen, and Antoni Gaudi, whose undulating architecture sports his own ironworks. Models, blueprints, sculptures. Through Jan. 9.

MOURA CHABOR--World House, 987 Madison Ave. at 77th. An art student in Paris during the '20s, Moura Chabor caught the eye of Sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, became his model ("A good way to make a living"). Today she catches the essentials of movement in her watercolors: children taking first steps, aerial artists inching across a tightrope, dancers of every kind. Through Jan. 9.

VARUJAN BOGHOSIAN--Stable, 33 East 74th. A gifted U.S. sculptor uses found materials to give new shape to the ancient legend of Orpheus descending into Hades to recover his lost Eurydice. The Poet in Hell, simply a weathered plank from a ship's hull and a doll's head poised in a square cutout, is a strange, evocative allusion to Orpheus after his fatal encounter. Through Jan. 2.

HERBERT KALLEM--Roko, 867 Madison Ave. at 72nd. Kallem once shared a studio with Stage Funnyman Zero Mostel (who paints too), is clever enough himself to provoke smiles with plumbing fixtures, pipes, and scrap iron that wind up as owls and other witty figments of his imagination. Through Dec. 23.

MANOLO--Schoelkopf, 825 Madison Ave. at 68th. During their youth in Barcelona, Manolo buddied with Picasso, later followed him to Paris. But while cubism whirled around him, Manolo turned to classicism, recalled his native Catalonia with slim-limbed toreros and squat, chunky senoritas. On display are 23 stone and bronze sculptures, plus drawings and watercolors. Through Dec. 24.

HIROSHIGE--Mi Chou, 801 Madison Ave. at 68th. In his 53 Stages of Tokaido, Japan's 19th century master printmaker depicts the teahouses and travelers, rainy downpours and icicled landscapes along the road that runs from Tokyo to Kyoto. Through Dec. 19.

THE MAGIC OF REALISM--Banfer, 23 East 67th. In egg tempera and acrylic polymer, in still lifes of snails and cockscombs and sultry human dramas, 18 slightly surreal realists change perspective and weave soells always uneasy, often unearthly. Through Dec. 31.

HOSIASSON, SCHUMACHER, SERPAN--Kootz, 655 Madison Ave. at 60th. Three European painters work in a rich variety of oils. Philippe Hosiasson, Russian-born cousin of the late Boris Pasternak, carves wavy landscapes out of creamy colors. Germany's Emil Schumacher produces scarred and wounded figures from mixed media that resembles dried clay and hardened lava. Iaroslav Serpan, a Yugoslav teaching at the Sorbonne, swishes up a storm of spiny black lines in a sea of gentle blues and greens. Through Dec. 19,

MIDTOWN

MAX BECKMANN--Viviano, 42 East 57th. The big Beckmann show is at the Museum of Modern Art, but Viviano gives a valuable look at such lesser known works as an unfinished triptych (Ballet Rehear sr al), eight bronzes, drawings, watercolors and oils. Through Jan. 31.

PHILIP C. CURTIS--Knoedler, 14 East 57th. "It's easy, in a slate like Arizona, for a painter to symbolize," explains Arizona Painter Curtis. "The trees, abandoned houses, ghost towns have always been a source of fascination for me." His oils--eerie scenes acted out in an atmosphere as hot and dry as Phoenix at noon--send spectators running for their Freudian primers. Through Dec. 26.

PAVEL TCHELITCHEW and OLD MASTERS--Durlacher, 538 Madison Ave. at 54th. A double-feature of drawing: Surrealist Tchelitchew's figures and landscapes, plus the expertise of Oldtimers Piranesi, Marco Ricci, Ruskin and others. The earliest work is a 15th century miniature of a saint by Florentine Francesco Antonio del Cherico, a small gem in opaque pink, blue and gold. Through Dec. 31.

MUSEUMS

JEWISH--Fifth Ave. at 92nd. From 700 artists, the Museum of Modern Art's William Seitz picked 26 painters and sculptors for this first major U.S. showing of contemporary Israeli art. Agam and Castel are well known here, but others, notably

Aika. Mordecai Ardon, Yigael Tumarkin, Yosef Zaritsky, also deserve a close look. Eighty works. Through Jan. 24.

GUGGENHEIM--Fifth Ave. at 89th. Hanging and sitting around are Alexander Calder's sprawling stabiles and spirited mobiles, along with just about everything else he has concocted in 40 years chock-full of work--wire sculpture, jewelry, toys, paintings (through Jan. 10). "The Shaped Canvas," with works by Paul Feeley, Sven Lukin, Richard Smith, Frank Stella and Neil Williams, shows some of the unusual patterns paintings come in these days. Through Jan. 3.

METROPOLITAN--Fifth Ave. at 82nd. Fifty versions of Aesop's fables as seen by artists in five centuries, most recently Alexander Calder and Antonio Frasconi; more than 300 ancient Peruvian ceramics going back to 1000 B.C.; and great French, Dutch and Flemish paintings.

GALLERY OF MODERN ART--Columbus Circle at 59th. The late Reginald Marsh haunted the low spots of the big town, sketching Manhattan's beaches, burlesque and Bowery. The museum shows his paintings, drawings and prints, as well as a retrospective of France's Jean Helion, who switched from highly regarded abstractions to so-so realistic paintings. Through Jan. 17 and Dec. 27, respectively.

MUSEUM OF PRIMITIVE ART--15 West 54th. Benin bronzes, Congolese woods, and a magnificent Afro-Portuguese ivory saltcellar are. among the 130 works of African sculpture from the superb collection of Jay C. Leff. Through Feb. 7.

WHITNEY--22 West 54th. New sculptors and old are on display in the Whitney's roundup. Some comers: Mary Bauermeister, Robert Howard, Jason Seley, Jeremy Anderson, H. C. Westermann, George Sugarman. Through Jan. 31.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART--11 West 53rd. Max Beckmann, Germany's late expressionist, was not one to let the viewer walk away from his paintings without a hint of pain or a twinge of conscience. This 220-work retrospective, from brutal war paintings to a final triptych, documents Curator Peter Selz's contention that Beckmann is linked to Kafka, Joyce, Bacon, Antonioni and Bergman as an artist "who enhances the feeling of human estrangement by the use of hard physical reality." Through Jan. 31.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFTS--29 West 53rd. A sure sign of Christmas is the seasonal deluge of "creative playthings"--the sort of doohickeys artists secretly amuse themselves with all year but only break out for the holidays. On hand: Charles Eames's music machine, Don Drumm's tin-can people, William Accorsi's roller coaster, many others. Through Jan. 17.

PIERPONT MORGAN LIBRARY--29 East 36th. A fine selection of old-master drawings, most by German artists of Diirer's and succeeding generations, but also some Netherlandish and Italian works, including a rare study by Leonardo da Vinci for his Adoration of the Magi. Rembrandt's prints--landscapes and self-portraits--are also displayed. Through Jan. 2 and 16.

BROOKLYN--Eastern Parkway. Every year the museum displays a Christmas masterwork never before shown in the U.S. This season's selection, from Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, is The Adoration of the Shepherds, a pastoral Nativity scene painted by Venetian Francesco Bassano between 1580 and 1590. Through Jan. 3.

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