MAQUETTES A Selection of Fine Art Bronze Maquettes by Neil Lawson Baker for
Collectors, Homes & Offices
email +44 (0)7802 896073 WELCOME TO THIS FLIPBOOK
Please enjoy my work. And do feel free to contact me by phone or email.
Please come and enjoy a cup of tea or a glass of wine and meet our Artist in Residence, painter and illustrator Lauren Alderslade.
Email +44 (0)7802 896073
CONTEMPLATION Influences of Moore and Hepworth are evident in many of my works. Featuring one arm and one leg, this work has a relaxed feel and is extremely peaceful to live with. Sculptures tend to make themselves felt in the space where they are shown and can often seem to emanate stronger vibrations than a painting.
18 x 34 x 31cm (h x w x d) Cast to Order A JOYOUS MOMENT This is a young child being held joyously by his mother. Available as a limited edition bronze maquette or enlarged to life size.
A JOYOUS MOMENT
34 x 18 x 13cm (h x w x d) BIRTH Originally a very small maquette with a closed pelvis, this work developed and gave birth to a baby which lies loose in the pelvic girdle waiting to be born. It can be a maquette, cast in fine art bronze or enlarged. I have a bronze maquette in my studio and the resin model for the proposed enlarged bronze can also be seen in the orchard at Graingers.
26.5 x 31.5 x 19cm (h x w x d)
BIRTH
185 x 150 x 220cm (h x w x d) Embryo: 68 x 27 x 68cm (h x w x d) A MAN CALLED HORSE
A bronze sculpture made as a dedication to my good friend the late Richard Harris, a world famous actor and one of the great Irish eccentrics. A Man called Horse was one of his best known films.
Available as a maquette: 64 x 38x 25cm (h x w x d) DALI Made soon after visiting the Salvador Museum at Figueres, Girona near Barcelona in Spain, this work depicts Dali as I saw (and see) him and I’d like to think he would have approved. Mostly modelled in wax, his eye was made with the end of my biro! Bronze casting and iron framework.
23.5 x 17.5 x 5cm (h x w x d) FIRST STEPS
Originally commissioned at life-and-a-half size by Marks and Spencers, the maquette has graced the back garden at Graingers ever since! It depicts that moment when a Mother sees her child take their very first steps.
FIRST STEPS
Available as a maquette, or life size, cast in bronze. 45 x 40 x 16cm (h x w x d) I WISH My wife says this is the best work I have ever made! It has been cast as a maquette by the Morris Singer Foundry. One copy is patinated in a glorious blue/black colour; the other work is a highly polished bronze. It takes a craftsman many hours to perfect at the chasing and polishing stage. On average the process of making a bronze sculpture, (once the original model is moulded or carved by the artist), is about 3 months or more for very large works.
19 x 53 x 24cm (h x w x d) I WISH
This work is available in resin or cast in bronze.
67 x 217 x 91cm (h x w x d) EASTER Many religions celebrate Easter – not just the Christian religions, but this work depicts the launch of Christianity.
12 x 20 x 12cm (w x d x h) EASTER
EMILY An engaging little figure, cast in bronze 19 x 18 x 36 cms as a maquette, or lifesize.
MARCEL MARCEAU’S HANDS
Fine Art bronze 45 x 40 x 16cm (h x w x d)
I was proud to be invited to Paris many years ago, to sculpt the hands of Marcel Marceau, the world-renowned mime, and as well as having the casts in bronze, I still have the original wax moulds of his hands in my cold store.
I have sculpted many hands for friends, for surgeons and for formal commissions.
If you would like casts of either your hands, or your loved ones’ hands, I would be happy to make it happen.
Marcel Marceau was a mime artist with a truly global reputation and a unique story. He was 16 years old and living in France at the start of the Second World War. He joined the French Resistance and helped Jews to escape from Occupied France and that was when he started to mime, using it to distract the younger Jewish children and persuade them to stay quiet and escape detection when the Germans were searching for them. He went on to gain fame around the world with numerous awards and honorary degrees; he appeared in films and was introduced to presidents. 18th March is Marcel Marceau day in New York City. His best known ‘character’ was ‘Bip’ the clown, who was able to make you laugh and cry in equal measure. MOTHER SUPERIOR Inspired by the late Elizabeth Frink’s Walking Madonna, seen at Salisbury Cathedral and, with an element of Chadwick too, this bronze Mother Superior is available either as a maquette or as an enlargement. I sold a copy of this work at my first exhibition in a Jermyn Street gallery in the early 1980’s. It was bought by one of the trustees of The Tate Gallery for his personal collection.
60 x 22.5 x 9cm (h x w x d)
MOTHER SUPERIOR
60 x 22.5 x 9cm (h x w x d) MY HAND AT WORK
With over 45 years of my life running a London surgery, my hand-eye skills became well-tuned to carry on life as an artist and sculptor when I changed career at the age of 70. This sculpture represents my hand at work and the original bronze was commissioned as a prize for students at the Birmingham Dental School. It is not for sale, but if you would like me to sculpt your hands, or the hands of one of your loved ones, I would be very happy to do so.
Fine Art bronze 45 x 40 x 16cm (h x w x d) PROCREATION
72 x 23 x 26cm (h x w x d) With an integral bronze base. NURTURE
35 x 22 x 20cm (h x w x d) with an integral bronze base. To highlight the care of adult for child, this work was one of the first in a series I created called The Ballhead Series. Available as a maquette, this work has also been enlarged and was cast by Pangolin in Stroud. It was originally commissioned by Seaward Properties, the enlarged work can be seen in Church Square, East Street, Chichester, West Sussex.
NURTURE
RECLINING NUDE REDHEAD from THE BALLHEAD SERIES A great project for an architect!
From the Ballhead series. The grand idea for this work was that an architect would conceive a complete development using each block as a major building and the round ball head as a giant rotating restaurant. I think it would be fabulous project to do. What a challenge!
13.5 x 38 x 19cm (h x w x d) RITES of SPRING
My first ever work, cast in bronze in 1989, represents the Dance of Life. I took it to the late Elizabeth Frink at her home for her comments when I first started making sculpture. She helped mentor me and we became good friends. We both cast in the same foundry, Burleighfield, at Beaconsfield, where Eric Gibbard, the CEO, was a powerful influence and a wonderful foundryman.
58 x 17 x 17cm (h x w x d) SCORPIO MAN
Representing my November birth in 1938, this sculpture calls to all ‘Scorpios’ and has the sting in the tail well wrapped up! I think it is fairly obvious that the influence here is Henry Moore and with a greeny black patina, Scorpio Man is a powerful addition to any collection.
23 x 16 x 12cm (h x w x d) STALEMATE
Designed as a potential award or, as a major sculpture, to be exhibited at The World Chess Championships. Presently a wooden model, it has never been cast into bronze. The idea would be to have chess pieces with a modern design in the position of stalemate on the central chess board.
36.5 x 55 x 22.5cm (h x w x d) STERLING
This work has quite a history and has been made in two sizes of maquettes as well as being enlarged to 2 metres as a corporate commission. I presented Lady Thatcher with a small maquette, which she kept on her desk during her time as Prime Minister of the UK. It is, and was, a particularly relevant work of art as the sculpture depicts the ongoing rivalry between Sterling and the Euro which continues to this day. The enlarged work can be seen on the south bank of the river Thames in London at Sterling House, near Albert Bridge.
The story of this piece is, I think, very interesting. If you would like to know more, please click here.
The 21” polished maquette. Cast in Paris by Susse Fondeurs.
Lady Thatcher invited me to her office to discuss the sculpture…
…and then wrote to thank me for the maquette I gave her.
A 2m high wood casting pattern, used by the foundry for casting the bronze. You can clearly see the currency symbols joining together in communion and combat.
SYBIL
168 x 22 x 30cm (h x w x d)
SYBIL
I was busy being inspired by Giacometti while working on this sculpture in my London studio when a notable interior decorator came to see me for a cup of tea, or an early evening glass of wine; I can’t remember which! What I do remember is that she asked me what I was intending to put on the head of my lady sculpture… …a hat? I picked up a round margarine carton on the table and placing it on the head of the sculpture. I took some softened wax and made the rim and produced the hat that you now see cast in bronze.
“Oh my goodness… …Sybil!” she exclaimed.
“Sybil who?” I asked.
“Why Sybil Thorndike* of course!
“When we were young, Sybil and I would walk up Bayswater to Whiteleys department store and buy picture hats before strolling back to Belgravia across Hyde Park; really looking the part, seriously glamorous and trying to catch the eye of the best looking young gentlemen.”
Hence ‘Sybil’. She has a wonderful presence and first rate provenance and I am actually very fond of her.
*Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882 – 1976) was a famous English actress who toured internationally in Shakespearean productions, often appearing with her husband Lewis Casson. George Bernard Shaw wrote Saint Joan (1923) especially for her, and she starred in it with great success. She was made a Dame by the Queen in 1931 and a Companion of Honour in 1970. She was quite a character and when asked if she had ever considered leaving her husband, she answered: “Divorce? Never! Murder, often!” TÊTE de FAMILLE This work suddenly arrived when I was playing with some sculpting material. There in my hands in the wax was a human head with an emerging father, mother, and child. I cast it and later enlarged it. I think it would make a great life sized work but so far haven’t taken that step.
22 x 26 x 22cm. (h x w x d)
TÊTE de FAMILLE
THE DANCE OF LIFE This work is clearly inspired by Barbara Hepworth. Eric Gibbard who was the owner of Burleighfield Foundry (who made all my early work in the late 1980s) was responsible for casting most of Hepworth’s work and she was a tower of strength and a great rival to Henry Moore, going right back to the time they were students together. Basically she helped to pioneer and introduce the use of spaces within sculptures which one sees in many of her iconic works.
51 x 24 x 15cm (h x w x d)
THE DANCE OF LIFE
THE LONELY PLANET
An abstract design from my Ballhead series designed to be large. This is the maquette in bronze, with the enamelled red ball finding its place in space.
25 x 29 x 25.5cm (h x w x d) THE QUR’AN
This bronze sculpture of The Qur’ān was commissioned by the late Prince Ahmed bin Salman as a gift to the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The sacred book is held gently and reverently by a beautiful pair of hands and cast in bronze.
24 x 18 x 15.5cm (h x w x d) THE RACE FOR RIDERLESS HORSES
Inspired by the story of Gericault being commissioned to make a 30-foot long frieze for Rome and by his wonderful drawings of horses, this sculpture depicts the start of one of those extraordinary, and perhaps cruel, bareback races that take place on clay and straw, laid on the cobbles in some Italian cities. The most famous are the races in Sienna. They have become known as ‘The Palio’, but more accurately a palio is actually a generic term for a general athletic competition. It dates back to the Middle Ages and involves a selection of medieval sports. Available at this size, the work has never been enlarged, but it would be a wonderful project to undertake.
THE RACE FOR RIDERLESS HORSES
56 x 68 x 32cm (h x w x d)
Base: 75 x 34cm
Fine art bronze sculpture with integral base. THREE SISTERS
Inspired by the wonderful play by Anton Chekov, written in 1900 and first performed in Moscow, in 1901. The sisters in the play are Olga, Maria and Irina.
This tryptych is available as maquettes or enlarged.
20 x 22 x 17cm (h x w x d)
THREE SISTERS
Enlarged works in bronze
75 x 81 x 64cm (h x w x d)
TORTELIER I modelled this in London on the evening that it was announced that Tortelier* had died, this sculpture immortalises his quivering head when playing his cello so wonderfully.
Tortelier giving a masterclass on the Elgar Cello Concerto.
* Paul Tortelier 1914 – 1990 was an internationally renowned, French virtuoso cellist and composer. His son, Yan Pascal Tortelier, is an international conductor. TORTELIER
25 x 20 x 15cm (h x w x d) VICTOR LUDORUM
Designed with the idea of having plaques added to the base annually and awarded at a school.
Available as a unique work of art in bronze. VICTOR LUDORUM
WISHBONE To symbolise our great love of horses and that I spent a considerable time, one- and three-day eventing and that my wife works with horses in her professional life as a psychotherapist, treating mental disorders and PTSD, very often using equine facilitation, this work is an amusing comment on the world of dressage! It utilises a wooden found object and, with a chicken ‘wishbone’ is cast in bronze!
Available as a bronze sculpture with integral bronze base
22 x 30 x 14 (h x w x d)
Base: 26 x 23cm
Thank you for viewing my maquettes flipbook. ALL WORKS ARE FOR SALE. Please feel free to contact me and come and see and touch the works in my studios, near Chichester in West Sussex.
+44 (0)7802 896073
February 2021