British Sculptors of the Twentieth Century

Alan Windsor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138714458
• eBook ISBN: 9781351771306
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published 2003. In the twentieth century, Britain was rich in artistic achievement, especially in sculpture. Just some of those working in this field were Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro, Richard Long, Mona Hatoum and Anish Kapoor. The work of these and other known and less well-known artists has an astonishing variety and expressive power, a range and strength that has placed Britain at the hub of the artistic world. Alan Windsor has compiled a concise biographical dictionary of sculpture in Britain in book form. Richly informative and easy-to-use, this guide is an art-lover's and expert's essential reference. Written by scholars, the entries are cross-referenced and each concise biographical outline provides the relevant facts about the artist's life, a brief characterization of the artist's work, and, where appropriate, major bibliographical references.

How to use the dictionary

The biographical outline of each sculptor is designed to make the salient facts about the artist's career known; when they were born, when they died, where they were trained, where they travelled and what honours, prizes or distinctions they were awarded, together with a brief characterization of the sculptor's work intended to help the reader to anticipate what is typical of that artist's sculpture.

Where possible, after 'LIT', one or two suggestions have been made for further reading about the sculptor. The literature does not include other dictionaries, nor, necessarily, any of the sources used for writing the entry in the dictionary.

A to Z of sculptors

A

Ivor Abrahams RA b.1935

Figurative sculptor in bronze, wood, cement, fibreglass, latex, ceramic and celluloid. Born in Wigan, Lancashire, he trained at St Martin's Schol of Art (1952-3) under Frank Martin and ANTHONY CARO and at Camberwell School of Art (1954-7) under Karel Vogel, who shared his enthusiasm for Giorgio de Chirico. He worked in the Fiorini bronze foundry (1954-6), and as a display artist for Adel Roolstein (1956-1960). He was a visiting lecturer at Coventry College of Art, at the RCA and at the Slade School of Art (1960-82). He held his first solo exhibition at New Vision Gallery (1958) and has subsequently exhibited at other London galleries including Mayor Gallery and Bernard Jacobson Gallery. His largest works of the 1970s, evoking gardens, were frequently polychrome and flocked, and examine the rhetorical forms of formal gardens as signifiers of the anthropomorphic (such as Lady in Niche, 1973, stone and mixed media, Tate Gallery). He is a prolific printmaker, and in the 1980s made beach figures, bathers and figure compositions in bronze and in Τ Material ceramic. His first ideas for sculpture have used photographic collages. A monumental work was Head of the Stairs (2000, reinforced fibreglass), a complex angular structure evoking several flights of stairs, made up of flat surfaces bearing polychromatic graphic images.

LIT: Ivor Abrahams, cat., Bernard Jacobson, London, 1994.

FG

Anne Acheson FRBS ARCA CBE 1882-1962

Figure sculptor. Born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, she studied at Victoria College, Belfast and then under Professor Lanteri at the RCA. She exhibited at the RA and abroad, receiving the Gleichen Memorial Award (1938).

FG

Roger Ackling b.1946

Sculptor of found wood and other discarded materials. Born in Isleworth, London, he trained at St Martin's School of Art. Since 1974, he has worked outdoors, scorching the surface of small pieces of found wood or recycled card with rows of dots by trapping the sun's rays with a magnifying glass. He held his first solo exhibitions at LCF Gallery and Lisson Gallery in London (1976) and is now represented in London by Annely Juda Fine Art. He has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad.

LIT: Roger Ackling: Works from Norfolk, cat., Annely Juda Fine Art, London, 1990; Flooded Margins, cat., Annely Juda Fine Art, London, 1994; Black Sun, Roger Ackling, cat., University of Warwick, 1996.

FG

Jane Ackroyd b.1957

Sculptor in welded and cast steel, sometimes scrap or polychrome. She studied at St Martin's School of Art (1979-82) and at the RCA (1982-3). She has held regular solo exhibitions at Kingsgate Workshops Gallery since 1984. Her recent work, which includes several public commissions, is often of animals or birds.

LIT: Jane Ackroyd, cat., Worcester College, Oxford, 1997.

FG

Robert Adams 1917-84

Painter and constructionist sculptor in wood, bronze and concrete. Born in Northampton, Adams was largely self-taught, attending evening classes in life-drawing and painting at Northampton School of Art (1937-46). He was a conscientious objector during the Second World War, holding civilian posts in a printing shop, timber yard and manufacturer of agricultural machinery. In 1948 he spent several weeks in Paris, where he met Constantin Brancusi, Henri Laurens and Maxime Adam-Tessier. He visited the USA in 1951 for three months and met several artists of the New York School, including Alexander Calder. He taught at the Central School of Art 1949-61, where he was a friend and colleague of Victor Pasmore. His first solo exhibition was held in 1947 at Gimpel Fils and he subsequently exhibited there regularly. In 19 51 his Apocalyptic Figure was commissioned by the Arts Council for the Festival of Britain, and examples of his work were also included in the British Council's 'New Aspects of British Sculpture' at the xxvi Biennale in Venice. In 1954, his work was selected by Lawrence Alloway for 'Nine Abstract Artists' (Redfern Gallery and subsequent eponymous publication). In 1956 he collaborated on a pavilion for 'This is Tomorrow' (Whitechapel Art Gallery) with Colin St. John Wilson, Frank Newby and Peter Carter. In 1962. his work was shown at a retrospective exhibition at the British Pavilion at the XXXI Biennale in Venice. Adams received several commissions for public buildings, notably Descending Forms, relief for Eltham Green School, London (1957), Wall Relief for Gelsenkirchen City Theater, Germany (1957) and Folding Movement for Williams & Glyn's Bank, London (1975-76), now at Homerton Hospital, London. Other such commissions included sculptures for the liners Canberra and Transvaal Castle (1961), for the BP building Britannic House in London (1966) and for New Customs House at Heathrow Airport (1967). His style underwent various changes in the course of his lifetime. Between 1948 and 1951 he produced abstract standing figures (for example, Dancer, 1950), often arranged in series. By 1952. his interest had shifted to entirely abstract forms and he became absorbed in counterbalancing solids and voids in a dynamic visual equation (for example, his Counterbalance series of the late 1950s). This interest continued throughout the 1960s, when Adams also developed a series of welded screens. However, in his bronzes of the 1970s there are suggestions of landscape and

Ivor Abrahams: Head of the Stairs 2000. Reinforced fibreglass, h. 300 cm

Robert Adams: Apocalyptic Figure 1951. Ashwood, 310.5 x 91.4 x 07.8 cm

seascape; the majority of these later bronzes are small and solid, being cast in sand moulds and individually ground, polished and patinated.

LIT: Robert Adams 1917-1984, exh.cat., Gimpel Fils, 1988; Robert Adams 1917-1984; A Sculptor's Record, Alastair Grieve, Tate Gallery, London, 1992; The Sculpture of Robert Adams, Alastair Grieve, Lund Humphries, 1992.

FG

Eileen Agar 1904-91

A Surrealist painter and creator of assemblages. She first studied with LEON UNDERWOOD, then at the Slade School of Art (1925-6). She visited Paris in 1914, and lived there (1928-30). A leading figure in British Surrealism, she showed in the first International Surrealist Exhibition in London (1936). Mate in Two Moods (1936), made a playful reference to chess playing, with a small table marked with irregular rectangular divisions bearing the cast of a hand, a fishbone, a small Tanagra head and a prickly sunfish. Her Angel of Anarchy (1937) was a plaster head of Joseph Bard, to which she applied pieces of paper doilies and fur and partly painted; this version was later lost, but she worked on a second cast in 1940, applying ostrich feathers, cloth and African beads until the form was completely shrouded and blindfold.

LIT: A Look at My Life, Eileen Agar, Methuen, 1988; Surrealism in Britain, Michel Remy, Ashgate, 1999.

FG

David Chalmers Alesworth ARBS b.1957

A sculptor primarily in welded, cast and forged steel. He was trained at Brookland Technical College (1974-6), Epsom (1976-7) and Wimbledon (1977-80) Schools of Art, then Kingston University (1980-1), as Picker Fellow in Sculpture. He lectured at Kingston University, then Glasgow School of Art (1981-3) before moving to Karachi in Pakistan in 1988, where after various teaching posts he became Head of Fine Art at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (1996). His first solo show was at Kingston University (1981), and he has exhibited widely in Britain, Denmark, Germany and Pakistan; in 1994 he was awarded the Silver Medal for Sculpture at the 6th National Exhibition in Islamabad. He has curated exhibitions and has promoted many cultural activities in Europe and Asia. His abstracted work has a totemic character, evoking figures and mask-like heads, as in Venus (1993).

AW

Julian Phelps Allan ARBS FRBS b.1892

Portrait and figure sculptor, including some ecclesiastical works. She studied art at the Westminster School of Art and, at the RA Schools (1922-5). She studied in Florence (1926) and also worked in Yugoslavia (1933). She first exhibited at the RA (1928). In 1929 she changed her name from Eva Dorothy.

FG

Richard Allen b.1933

Kinetic sculptor. Born in Worcester, he trained at Worcester School of Art (1955) and Bath Academy of Art (1957). In i960 he was awarded a scholarship by the Italian Government and in 1966 he was a Commonwealth Scholar (India). He became a Fellow at the University of Sussex (1967) and has also worked as a visiting teacher at Ravensbourne College of Art, Central Polytechnic School of Architecture and London College of Printing. He has exhibited at several group shows in the UK and abroad.

lit: Richard Allen, cat., Angela Flowers, London, 1971.

FG

Anthea Alley b.1927

Sculptor in metal and painter. Born in Malaya, she settled in England in 1944. After a brief service in the WRNS, she studied painting and design at Regent Street Polytechnic and Chelsea College of Art, followed by the RCA. She married Ronald Alley, a Keeper of the Modern Collection at the Tate Gallery (1955). She started making sculpture (1957), beginning to weld metal (1959). She taught at Bath Academy of Art at Corsham (1960-1) and subsequently also at Hammersmith College of Art and Epsom School of Art. Her first solo exhibition was at the Molton Gallery, London (i960) and she has exhibited since in various London galleries, including Annely Juda Fine Art. Her works often explore the overlap between painting and sculpture, as in her box reliefs in which she investigates the idea of dynamism within a confined space. She has also experimented with kinetic sculpture and with works incorporating light or water (for example, Spatial Forms, 1962-3, Tate Gallery).

LIT: Gillian Ayers, Paintings, Antbea Alley, Sculpture, Molton Gallery, London, i960; Anthea Alley, cat., Annely Juda Fine Art, London, 1974.

FG

Edward Allington b.1951

Anthea Alley: Horse 1960. Welded iron, 43 x 91.4 x 30 cm

A sculptor, writer and lecturer. Born at Troutbeck Bridge, Westmorland, he studied at the Central School (1968-74). He often uses classical forms, as a dialogue with the continuation and debasement of the values of antique art in the modern world. Early examples of this were Fireplace (1974) consisting of a number of casts of the Venus de Milo, and Vase (1974), decorated with reproductions of the temple of Athena Niké on the Acropolis. He has frequently used the cornucopia and the volute in an ironic way, The Groan as a Wound Weeps (1984), Fruits of Oblivion (1982) and That Most Fabulous Wound (1983), as well as The Poignancy of Insects (1983), being examples of the juxtaposition of a classical element with plastic fruit, vegetables and insects of a garish, kitsch nature. His Ideal Standard Forms (1980, plaster) is in the Tate Gallery, consisting of nine objects composed as a rough square on the ground. It also possesses Oblivion Penetrated (1982, steel, terracotta and plastic), un unsupported golden cornucopia spilling out plastic fruit, and a drawing, Seated in Darkness (1987, ink and emulsion paint on canvas-backed paper) in which architectural elements (principally scroll brackets) float, casting a black shadow, in a dream-like setting suggesting a vestigial room with floorboards. He has also created works involving perspective drawing and photomontage; in 1987 an enlarged version of his photographically-derived trompe-1'œil Decorative Forms Over the World was exhibited under the portico of the St Martin's in the Fields Church, as part of the TSWA 3-dimensional scheme for the temporary installation of sculpture in public places. Other explorations of the interplay between the real and the illusionary have been Waiting Unleashed (1989) at the Kohji Ogura Gallery, Japan, in which a small bronze was placed on a shelf against a white wall, next to a photograph of it, in an eighteenth-century neo-classical interior. He won the John Moore's Liverpool Exhibition prize in 1989, and was Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at Leeds University (1991-3). He was Research Fellow in Sculpture at Manchester Metropolitan University (1993) and won an award to work at the British School in Rome (1997). He teaches at the Slade School of Art. He uses a wide range of mixed media, including copper, bronze, photographs and found objects, all of which may be brought together in his work. Fallen Pediment (Piano) (1994, copper), although unusual in his œuvre in being made for an open-air setting, is characteristic in that architectural elements, evoking classical antiquity, are subject to complex modifications to achieve a deceptively simple curved form. He designed the City of the Eye curtain for the Rex cinema in Paris (1991), and later in the 1990s realized the project Quadratura for St Peter's Church, Cambridge, in collaboration with Beevor Mull Architects.

AW

Simon Montague Allison b.1955

Environmental sculptor and painter; previously stage designer. B...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Notes on the text
• How to use the dictionary