DOCSLIB.ORG

British Art in the Nuclear Age. Edited by Catherine Jolivette. 306 Pp. Incl

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
British Art in the Nuclear Age. Edited by Catherine Jolivette. 306 Pp. Incl BR.MAY.pp.proof.corr_Layout 1 17/04/2015 11:20 Page 8 BOOKS nuclear imagery in the various displays of the destructive’ works to the Pop appropriations British Art in the Nuclear Age. Edited by 1951 Festival of Britain. of Derek Boshier and Richard Hamilton, Catherine Jolivette. 306 pp. incl. 16 col. + Other authors approach the nuclear context alongside parallel imagery by American peers 51 b. & w. ills. (Ashgate, Farnham, 2014), more obliquely. Carol Jacobi considers the Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist. Few £70. ISBN 978–1–4724–1276–8. atomic threat to be an implicit aspect of what artists, British or otherwise, represented the Eduardo Paolozzi characterised as ‘a kind of actions and aftermath of atomic war itself, Reviewed by LEE HALLMAN cold war feeling about art’ in the immediate however. Martin explores the notable excep- post-War years, exemplified in the spread of tion of Colin Self, whose Fall-out shelter series WRITING IN THE immediate aftermath of the Existentialism from France to Britain. Robert and works produced in response to the Cuban Second World War and its devastating con- Burstow explores the extent to which nuclear missile crisis depicted the real and imagined clusion with the bombings of Hiroshima and concerns had an impact on a range of post-War victims of nuclear destruction (Fig.61). Nagasaki, Kenneth Clark prophesied in the British sculpture, from Peter (Laszlo) Peri’s Although centred on British culture, the final chapter of his celebrated book Landscape overtly social-realist protest piece Aldermaston volume’s attention to transcontinental into Art that the ‘excitement and awe which marchers (1960) to the more ‘coded’ sculptural exchange and émigré artists underscores the this terrible new universe arouses in us will language of Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, omnipresent experience of the nuclear age. In find expression in some way’.1 Identifying and Lynn Chadwick and others whose spiky, one of the most absorbing essays, Kate interpreting a range of these expressions is the anthropomorphic forms prompted Herbert Aspinall recounts an instance in which science overarching aim of British Art in the Nuclear Read’s famous phrase ‘Geometry of Fear’ – an cast its gaze onto art. In an episode of his 1973 Age, a compilation of academic essays whose epithet whose own evolving connotations BBC television series The Ascent of Man, publication represents the latest in a recent Burstow skilfully unearths. Drawing upon the Polish-born scientist Jacob Bronowski scholarly wave to examine British art and its theories of family dynamics from contempo- suggested that the synthesis of subjective judg- discourses during the three decades following rary psychoanalysis, Gregory Salter argues that ment and fallibility embodied in the dynamic, the War’s end in 1945.2 The present volume, nuclear anxieties permeate the bunker-like overlaid process of the painter Feliks Topolski edited by Catherine Jolivette, frames the Cold domestic spaces depicted by John Bratby, one (a fellow Polish-born emigrant) might be War era as a ‘nuclear age’ in which the over- of the best known of the ‘Kitchen Sink’ painters. understood as a visual analogy to the fraught shadowing presence of atomic power inflected Some of the strongest essays locate visual ethics of scientific authority. Topolski’s paint- cultural production well into the later decades reflections of the nuclear age’s widespread ings, too, transcend Bronowski’s metaphorical of the twentieth century. doubts in artists’ deliberately fluctuating context. But as a cross-disciplinary case study, Many British artists publicly opposed the forms. Catherine Spencer provides a well- the essay is a testament to the way one field development of nuclear power: Barbara researched context for the ‘indeterminate’, can shed light upon another, perhaps most Hepworth, Patrick Heron, Henry Moore, semi-abstract shapes in Prunella Clough’s importantly by helping it to frame critical Ben Nicholson and Richard Hamilton were ‘urbscape’ paintings, stimulated in part by questions – in this case, the urgent questions among those who signed the British Campaign military cartography and the aerial photo - about civilisation’s hopes and fears that per- for Nuclear Disarmament in February 1958, graphy of industrial landscapes. Meanwhile, as meated the nuclear age and that this book, and several artists participated in the first Burstow reiterates, Henry Moore’s Atom piece generally speaking, does not shy from. march from Trafalgar Square to the Atomic (1964–67), commissioned to commemorate Weapons Research Establishment at Alder- the first nuclear chain reaction, invokes both 1 K. Clark: Landscape into Art, London 1952 (first edition maston. The relationship between an artist’s the mushroom cloud and a human skull. 1949), p.142. activism and the art he or she creates, however, Other artists found inspiration in the 2 These include M. Garlake: New art, new world: British is inevitably more complex than a campaign ‘micro-iconography’ of atomic science: British art in postwar society, New Haven and London 1998; J. advances in crystallography provided a formal Hyman: The battle for realism: Figurative art in Britain during signature might suggest. For one thing, as the Cold War, 1945–60, London 2001; see also L. Tickner contributor Simon Martin points out, unlike catalyst for the Constructivist explorations of and D. Peters Corbett, eds.: British art in the cultural field, the twentieth century’s First and Second Naum Gabo and Barbara Hepworth, for 1939–69, Chichester 2012, which also includes an essay by World Wars, the Cold War was a ‘war of example. It is one thing to identify sources of Catherine Jolivette about art in the nuclear age. ideologies’ whose contexts and consequences formal motivation, however, and another to 3 S. Martin and M. Livingstone: exh. cat. Colin Self: were constantly present but not readily assume that any singular context determines a Art in the Nuclear Age, Chichester (Pallant House comprehended, let alone represented.3 More- work’s meaning. Fiona Gaskin extends the Gallery) 2008, pp.19–20, cited here by Jolivette, p.14. over, as Jolivette notes in her introduction, discourse of Read’s ‘Geometry of Fear’ to the the connotations of nuclear science shifted metamorphic post-War landscape paintings of substantially from the 1940s to the 1960s Graham Sutherland, Peter Lanyon and Alan alongside an evolving understanding of a Reynolds, but her assertion that their paintings technology that could be harnessed alternately can be read as ‘metaphors of the nuclear threat’ Lynn Chadwick. By Michael Bird. 192 pp. as an agent of energy production and a (p.127) is overstated and largely unsupported. incl. 120 col. + 40 b. & w. ills. (Lund weapon of mass destruction. Simon Martin considers British responses Humphries, London, 2014), £45. ISBN The book bills itself as ‘rooted in the study to the bomb, from Gustav Metzger’s ‘auto- 978–1–84822–135–2. of objects’, a claim the nine essays interpret and substantiate with notable breadth, explor- Reviewed by JUDY COLLINS ing how the nuclear age shaped, and in some cases was shaped by, a spectrum of visual cul- MICHAEL BIRD’S MONOGRAPH on the sculptor ture from painting and sculpture (encompassing Lynn Chadwick (1914–2003) begins with an social realism, abstraction, expressionism, and illuminating introductory section called Pop), to applied design, exhibition display ‘Blowtorch poetry’, which gives the reader a and photojournalism. A number of essays good feel for Chadwick’s workshop empiri- scrutinise the documentation of atomic science cism, and a greater understanding of the variety in popular forums and the mass media: of sculptures discussed in the subsequent seven Christopher Laucht investigates how images chapters. The book is well arranged and visual- of the bombings of Japan and post-War ly attractive, with some unusual personal nuclear testing grounds were communicated 61. Waiting woman with nuclear bomber, by Colin Self. photographs, especially one by Lee Miller of a to British audiences in the magazine Picture 1963. Gouache, pencil and crayon on paper, 34.5 by naked Chadwick sharpening kitchen knives at Post, while Jolivette surveys representations of 57 cm. (Richard Saltoun Gallery, London). the home of Miller and Roland Penrose. the burlington magazine • clvii • may 2015 355.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • City Research Online
    City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Summerfield, Angela (2007). Interventions : Twentieth-century art collection schemes and their impact on local authority art gallery and museum collections of twentieth- century British art in Britain. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City University, London) This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/17420/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] 'INTERVENTIONS: TWENTIETH-CENTURY ART COLLECTION SCIIEMES AND TIIEIR IMPACT ON LOCAL AUTHORITY ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM COLLECTIONS OF TWENTIETII-CENTURY BRITISH ART IN BRITAIN VOLUME If Angela Summerfield Ph.D. Thesis in Museum and Gallery Management Department of Cultural Policy and Management, City University, London, August 2007 Copyright: Angela Summerfield, 2007 CONTENTS VOLUME I ABSTRA.CT.................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS •........••.••....••........•.•.•....•••.......•....•...• xi CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTION................................................. 1 SECTION 1 THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF PUBLIC ART GALLERIES, MUSEUMS AND THEIR ART COLLECTIONS..........................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Smart Museum of Art BULLETIN 1998-1999
    The Smart Museum of Art BULLETIN 1998-1999 CONTENTS Board and Committee Members 4 Report of the Chair and Director 5 Mission Statement 7 Volume 10, 1998-1999 Front cover: Three Kingdoms period, Silla King­ Studies in the Permanent Collection Copyright © 2000 by The David and Alfred Smart dom (57 B.c.E-935 C-E-) Pedestalledjar, 5th—6th Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 5550 century stoneware with impressed and combed Metaphors and Metaphorphosis: The Sculpture of Bernard Meadows South Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, decoration and natural ash glaze deposits, h. 16 in the Early 1960s 9 60637. All rights reserved. inches (40.6 cm), Gift of Brooks McCormick Jr., RICHARD A. BORN 1999.13. ISSN: 1099-2413 Back cover: The Smart Museum's Vera and A.D. Black and White and Red All Over: Continuity and Transition in Elden Sculpture Garden, recently re-landscaped Editor: Stephanie P. Smith with a gift from Joel and Carole Bernstein. Robert Colescott's Paintings of the Late 1980s 17 Design: Joan Sommers Design STEPHANIE P. SMITH Printing: M&G Commercial Printing Photography credits: Pages 8-13, 16, 18, 24-40, Tom van Eynde. Page 20, Stephen Fleming. Pages Activities and Support 41 —43» 4 6> 48> 51. Lloyd de Grane. Pages 44, 45, 49, Rose Grayson. Page 5, Jim Newberry. Page 53, Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection 25 Jim Ziv. Front and back covers, Tom van Eynde. Loans from the Permanent Collection 36 The images on pages 18-22 are reproduced courtesy of Robert Colescott. The work by Imre Kinszki illustrated on page 24 and 31 is reproduced Exhibitions 39 courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.
    [Show full text]
  • Lynn Chadwick out of the Shadows Unseen Sculpture of the 1960S
    LYNN CHADWICK OUT OF THE SHADOWS UNSEEN SCULPTURE OF THE 1960S 1 INTRODUCTION ince my childhood in Africa I have been fascinated and stimulated by Lynn SChadwick’s work. I was drawn both by the imagery and the tangible making process which for the first time enabled my child’s mind to respond to and connect with modern sculpture in a spontaneous way. I was moved by the strange animalistic figures and intrigued by the lines fanning across their surfaces. I could see that the lines were structural but also loved the way they appeared to energise the forms they described. I remember scrutinising photographs of Lynn’s sculptures in books and catalogues. Sometimes the same piece appeared in two books but illustrated from different angles which gave me a better understanding of how it was constructed. The connection in my mind was simple. I loved skeletons and bones of all kinds and morbidly collected dead animals that had dried out in the sun, the skin shrinking tightly over the bones beneath. These mummified remains were somehow more redolent of their struggle for life than if they were alive, furred and feathered and to me, Lynn’s sculpture was animated by an equal vivacity. His structures seemed a natural and logical way to make an object. Around me I could see other structures that had a similar economy of means; my grandmother’s wire egg basket, the tissue paper and bamboo kites I built and the pole and mud constructions of the African houses and granaries. This fascination gave me a deep empathy with Lynn’s working method and may eventually have contributed to the success of my relationship with him, casting his work for over twenty years.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Reforming Academicians', Sculptors of the Royal Academy of Arts, C
    ‘Reforming Academicians’, Sculptors of the Royal Academy of Arts, c.1948-1959 by Melanie Veasey Doctoral Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University, September 2018. © Melanie Veasey 2018. For Martin The virtue of the Royal Academy today is that it is a body of men freer than many from the insidious pressures of fashion, who stand somewhat apart from the new and already too powerful ‘establishment’.1 John Rothenstein (1966) 1 Rothenstein, John. Brave Day Hideous Night. London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1966, 216. Abstract Page 7 Abstract Post-war sculpture created by members of the Royal Academy of Arts was seemingly marginalised by Keynesian state patronage which privileged a new generation of avant-garde sculptors. This thesis considers whether selected Academicians (Siegfried Charoux, Frank Dobson, Maurice Lambert, Alfred Machin, John Skeaping and Charles Wheeler) variously engaged with pedagogy, community, exhibition practice and sculpture for the state, to access ascendant state patronage. Chapter One, ‘The Post-war Expansion of State Patronage’, investigates the existing and shifting parameters of patronage of the visual arts and specifically analyses how this was manifest through innovative temporary sculpture exhibitions. Chapter Two, ‘The Royal Academy Sculpture School’, examines the reasons why the Academicians maintained a conventional fine arts programme of study, in contrast to that of industrial design imposed by Government upon state art institutions for reasons of economic contribution. This chapter also analyses the role of the art-Master including the influence of émigré teachers, prospects for women sculpture students and the post-war scarcity of resources which inspired the use of new materials and techniques.
    [Show full text]
  • ROBERT ADAMS (British, 1917-1984)
    ROBERT ADAMS (British, 1917-1984) “I am concerned with energy, a physical property inherent in metal, [and] in contrasts between linear forces and masses, between solid and open areas … the aim is stability and movement in one form.” (R. Adams, 1966, quoted in A. Grieve, 1992, pp. 109-111) Robert Adams was born in Northampton, England, in October 1917. He has been called “the neglected genius of post-war British sculpture” by critics. In 1937, Adams began attending evening classes in life drawing and painting at the Northampton School of Art. Some of Adam’s first-ever sculptures were also exhibited in London between 1942 and 1944 as part of a series of art shows for artists working in the Civil Defence, which Adams joined during the Second World War. He followed this with his first one-man exhibition at Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, in 1947, before starting a 10-year teaching career in 1949 at the Central School of Art and Design in London. It was during this time that Adams connected with a group of abstract painters – importantly Victor Pasmore, Adrian Heath and Kenneth and Mary Martin – finding a mutual interest in Constructivist aesthetics and in capturing movement. In 1948, Adams’ stylistic move towards abstraction was further developed when he visited Paris and seeing the sculpture of Pablo Picasso, Julio Gonzales, Constantine Brancusi and Henry Laurens. As such, Adams’ affiliation with his fellow English carvers, such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, extended only as far as an initial desire to carve in stone and wood. Unlike his contemporaries, Adams did not appear to show much interest in the exploration of the human form or its relationship to the landscape.
    [Show full text]
  • Britain in the World 1860–Now
    yale center for british art Britain in the World 1860–now Second-floor galleries Rebecca Salter, born 1955, British K37 1996, mixed media on canvas The work of Rebecca Salter draws on a variety of artistic styles, media, and cultural traditions. Her distinctive approach was shaped primarily by the six years she spent in Kyoto, Japan, in the early 1980s, where she studied ceramics. She returned to her native London with a commitment to two-dimensional art and a particular interest in Japanese printmaking techniques and the subtle textures and surfaces of Japanese papers. In the late 1980s, however, she also began to make regular visits to the Lake District in northern England, taking inspiration from the austere landscape and ever-shifting weather conditions. Working within a tight tonal range and rarely letting one part of the canvas speak louder than any other, Salter’s paintings are nonetheless quietly compelling: a suitable match for the architecture of Louis Kahn (designer of the Yale Center for British Art), in whose memory this painting was purchased. Friends of British Art Fund and Gift of Jules David Prown, MAH 1971, in memory of Louis I. Kahn, B2011.8 Sandra Blow, 1925–2006, British Red Circle 1960, mixed media on board Sandra Blow emerged in the 1950s as one of the most innovative figures in British abstract art. Blow built her reputation as an independent and pioneering force despite making and keeping a loose connection to the modernists at St. Ives, especially Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, and Patrick Heron. Red Circle’s vivid band of color encircling concentric black rings on a monochrome field exemplifies her bold abstraction, which nevertheless references the natural world and organic forms.
    [Show full text]
  • Bernard Meadows Homa
    O H MA March The Newsletter ? 2011 HoMA shows works, for sale, by Henry Moore’s first assistant who went on to be a major British sculptor in his own right: BERNARD MEADOWS Bernard Meadows became Henry Moore’s assistant in 1936 when he was just 21. According to Moore’s biographer, Roger Bertholt, “It was to be by Far Henry’s most enduring relationship with another artist” . The direct professional relationship continued until Meadows volunteered for the the RAF in 1941 serving in air sea rescue for the next five years, until 1943 at Dover, then being posted to India and final on a coral atoll on the Cocos Islands. Although during this period any sustained artistic endeavour was not possible, the natural history particularly the birdlife and crabs were to have an enduring impact on his work. The relationship with Moore was very much a double edged sword for Meadows. While it was a phenomenal education and a creative relationship for both artists he struggled to establish an Cock’s Head : A hugely impressive , and unusually reputation untouched by his mentor’s shadow. highly realistic, green patinated bronze by Meadows. Another cast was acquired by the Henry Although twenty works on paper and two bronze Moore Institute in Leeds as part of its acquisition casts we are showing are eloquent testimony to of a number of Meadow’s works in lieu of death his distinctive voice, we are showing this work to duties. All the works we are showing at HoMA, coincide with the tremendous Moore show in including this and another, posthumous, cast of Leeds City Gallery.
    [Show full text]
  • Kenneth Armitage Catalogue.Indd
    Kenneth Armitage How Many Miles to Babylon? 1 1 2 3 Kenneth Armitage 1916 – 20 02 How Many Miles to Babylon? Jonathan Clark Fine Art In association with The Kenneth Armitage Foundation 4 How Many Miles to Babylon? How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten. Can I get there by candle-light? Yes, and back again. Traditional nursery rhyme It is hard now to imagine the heights of enthusiasm that greeted the British Council’s sculpture exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1952. Just like a pack of 1990s YBAs, this group of new generation sculptors - among them Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, William Turnbull, Eduardo Paolozzi and Kenneth Armitage - became front page news that summer. British sculpture had turned out to be edgy and cool, a new choir of voices for the post war world. For Armitage more than anyone else, it meant being catapulted into the international arena. Even before he had time to return home from Venice, his London studio had been visited by Alfred Barr, the Director of MoMA in New York, who was quickly securing two bronzes for the museum. Peggy Guggenheim and Elsa Schiaparelli also purchased pieces. Academics of the eminence of Herbert Read and Philip Hendy wrote intensely about this new existential art; and for the rest of the 1950s, culminating in his own retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1959, institutions and private collectors sparred to acquire Armitage’s work at a remarkable rate. It was a golden platform from which to develop the eagerly anticipated next phase of his career.
    [Show full text]
  • PANGOLIN LONDON I N T R O D U C T I O N
    PANGOLIN PANGOLIN LONDON 1 PANGOLIN LONDON INTR ODUCTION When I wrote the introduction to our last general catalogue almost six years ago from a small and bland offsite office, the idea of setting up a brand new sculpture gallery in King’s Cross seemed remarkably abstract. Not only was the building we were to inhabit still a shell but we were unfamiliar with the location and our audience. It was going to be a monumental leap into the unknown but as Kings Place underwent its rapid transformation from building site to elegant cultural hub it soon became apparent that this would be a perfect home for sculpture. Since then, we’ve held over forty exhibitions and established ourselves as one of the leading galleries dedicated to sculpture in the UK. To begin with, our strong affiliation with Pangolin Editions the bronze foundry caused some confusion. “Foundries should stick to what they know” one dismissive dealer told me but to simply show the wares of the foundry was never our intention. Rather the remit has always been to explore sculpture in all its forms and if the foundry’s expertise could help reinforce that then so much the better. Slowly, year on year we’ve proved our ability to deliver an interesting and dynamic exhibition programme ranging from cutting-edge contemporary to museum-quality historical with artists from the established to the emerging and from monumental surveys such as ‘Sculptors’ Drawings’ to intimate exhibitions. We’ve had shows that focus on the making process and those that push the boundaries of making not just in bronze but in silver and ceramic and even those that challenge the traditional pigeonholes of 2D and 3D to explore two and a half dimensions.
    [Show full text]
  • Sculpture in the Home
    PANGOLIN SCULPTURE IN THE HOME LONDON 1 SCULPTURE IN THE HOME One is apt to think of sculpture only as a monumental art closely connected with architecture so that the idea of an exhibition to show sculpture on a small scale as something to be enjoyed in the home equally with painting seemed worth while. Frank Dobson, Sculpture in the Home exhibition catalogue, 1946 Sculpture in the Home celebrates a series of innovative touring exhibitions of the same name organised in the 1940s and ‘50s first by the Artists International Association (AIA) and then the Arts Council. These exhibitions were intended to encourage viewers to reassociate themselves with sculpture on a smaller scale and also as an art form that could be enjoyed in a domestic environment. Works were shown not on traditional plinths or pedestals but in settings that included furniture and textiles of the day. With an estimated 2,000,000 homes destroyed by enemy action in the UK during World War II and around 60% of those in London one could be forgiven for thinking that the timing of these exhibitions was far from appropriate. However in many respects the exhibitions were perfectly timed and looking back sixty years later, offer us a unique insight into the exciting and rapid developments not only of sculpture and design but also manufacturing, and the re-establishment of the home as a sanctuary after years of hardship, uncertainty and displacement. As our exhibition hopes to explore the Sculpture in the Home exhibitions also offer us an opportunity to consider the cross-pollination between disciplines and the similarities of visual language that resulted.
    [Show full text]
  • GALLERY PANGOLIN GALLERY PANGOLIN Gallery Pangolin Is Hidden Away on a River Bank in the Ancient Village of Chalford on the Edge of the Cotswolds
    GALLERY PANGOLIN GALLERY PANGOLIN Gallery Pangolin is hidden away on a river bank in the ancient village of Chalford on the edge of the Cotswolds. The gallery opened in 1991 on what was once a Victorian industrial site at the heart of the Golden Valley. It grew from the need to represent the enormous variety of sculpture cast on the same premises by Pangolin Editions bronze foundry and continues an age-old association between art foundry and gallery. Now a well-established and recognized specialist in sculpture and related works on paper by both Modern and contemporary artists, Gallery Pangolin boasts an excellent reputation for works of quality and integrity. The gallery’s exciting annual programme includes themed and solo shows, publications, lectures, films and collaborations with public galleries and museums. Gallery Pangolin also co-ordinates commissions, curates major exhibitions of sculpture and acts as an agent for artists and collectors. CONTEMPORARY ANTHONY ABRAHAMS JON BUCK ANN CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL COOPER TERENCE COVENTRY STEVE DILWORTH ABIGAIL FALLIS SUE FREEBOROUGH JONATHAN KINGDON ANITA MANDL CHARLOTTE MAYER PETER RANDALL-PAGE ALMUTH TEBBENHOFF WILLIAM TUCKER ANTHONY ABRAHAMS b 1926 Anthony Abrahams’ carefully poised, enigmatic figures follow a tradition in British sculpture that began in the 1950’s with Armitage, Butler, Chadwick, Frink and Meadows and their contemporaries. The exaggeration of some features and the repression of others, unified by formal and textural qualities, give his sculpture a personal and expressive quality as if Prehistoric fertility symbols had been reborn in the contemporary world. His emblematic figures, caught in playful postures, remind us of ourselves and of those familiar to us.
    [Show full text]
  • To Herbert Read's
    ‘A stimulation to greater effort of living’: The Importance of Henry Moore’s ‘credible compromise’ to Herbert Read’s Aesthetics and Politics http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/henry- moore/ben-cranfield-a-stimulation-to-greater-effort-of- living-the-importance-of-henry-moores-r1151301 Ben Cranfield Moore’s work can be understood as a vital part of the aesthetics and politics of Herbert Read, one of the most important theorisers of art and culture in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. This essay explores why Moore came to occupy an exemplary position in Read’s thoughts about the relationship of the individual and the community. Fig.1 Photograph of Herbert Read, taken in 1943, at his home in No.3 The Mall, Parkhill Road, Hamstead, where he was a close neighbour of a number of artists, including Henry Moore National Portrait Gallery, London Photo: Howard Coster Herbert Read (1893–1968) was one of the most prolific and important theorisers and organisers of art and culture in Britain (fig.1). He started out as a civil servant and held positions in many national cultural organisations, including the Arts Council and the British Council, and accepted a knighthood,1 but he was never fully an ‘insider’, perhaps in part because of his unusual origins. The son of a farmer, his father died when Herbert was ten and, ripped untimely from his rural ‘idyll’, he found himself placed in an industrial urban context that appalled and compelled him in equal measure. His most formative educational experiences were not at one of Britain’s public schools nor Oxbridge but at the Leeds Arts Club – an established home, by the time of Read’s arrival in 1913, of avant-garde thought.2 Despite Read’s life-long support of British, and particularly English, artists, and his deep saturation in the poetry of Shelley, Wordsworth and Coleridge, he was not wholly English or British in his outlook.
    [Show full text]