Tag Archives: sculpture

Much Moore to be seen at Kenwood House in north London

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INSIDE KENWOOD HOUSE (in north London), the visitor can see a glorious collection of paintings by famous artists such as (to name but a few): Vermeer, Rembrandt, Constable, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Cuyp, Romney, and Van Dyck. These works are part of the Iveagh Bequest, which was the collection of paintings bought by the art collector, Irish brewing magnate, and philanthropist Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (1847-1927).

In the grounds of Kenwood House, there are two sculptures created after Iveagh’s death. They are both by sculptors, who are considered as some of the greatest British artists of the 20th century. One of them, which is near the house, is by Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), and the other, which we examined when we walked past it today, illustrated above, is by Henry Moore (1898-1986). His large bronze sculpture is called “Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 5”, and was completed in 1963-1964. It has been lent to Kenwood by the Tate Gallery.

Apart from being superb sculptors and having works at Kenwood, Hepworth and Moore have other things in common. Both studied at the Leeds School of Art, where they met. And both lived in Hampstead, which is close to Kenwood, for a while between the two World Wars. While they were in Hampstead, they had studios close to each other: Hepworth in Mall Studios, and Moore in nearby Parkhill Road. You can find out more about their lives in Hampstead in my book “Beneath a Wide Sky: Hampstead and its Environs”.

Art amongst the plants at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew

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I ENJOY VIEWING sculpture displayed in the open-air. Seeing sculpture ‘al-fresco’ is for me much more pleasant than viewing it in a gallery. From time to time, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew hosts outdoor sculpture displays. In the past, I have seen exhibitions of works by Henry Moore and Dale Chihuly. This year (2024), there are several sculptures by Marc Quinn dotted around the gardens. Quinn, who was born in the UK in 1964 is an adventurous creator, whose works sometimes give rise to controversy. I do not believe that the collection of his works now on display in Kew will give rise to much, if any, controversy.

Except for several bronze sculptures depicting larger than life bonsai trees, which have been placed in the Temperate House, the rest of the sculptures are made in highly reflective stainless steel. Appropriately for their setting, these sculptures are derived from the shapes of plants, leaves, and flowers. Because they are so reflective, they reflect the plants and trees growing near them. This helps to camouflage them, or make them seem as if they are merging with the surrounding vegetation. Although they contrast dramatically with their surroundings, their reflective nature softens the contrast when viewed from certain angles.

When I see sculpture next to nature, I often feel that however well the artwork has been created, it often palls when compared to what Nature has created. Quinn’s work at Kew has this effect, but somehow, probably because it reflects the plants around it, the comparison between what he created and what has been growing naturally is not too marked, and did not disturb me.

A visit to Kew Gardens is always enjoyable, and seeing the place with Quinn’s work in situ was a good experience. The exhibition will continue until the 29th of September 2024.

William Hogarth and Damien Hirst as neighbours in a church in London

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ST BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT church in the City of London was founded in 1123 by Rahere, a courtier of King Henry the 1st, who reigned from 1100 to 1135. It was originally built as the church for an Augustinian priory, which was abolished and partly destroyed during the reign of King Henry VIII. When this happened (in 1539), the priory church’s nave was demolished, leaving only the apse and beyond it, the Lady Chapel. The choir, which used to be at the west end of the apse and at the eastern end of the demolished nave, now stands at the east end of what is now the nave, but was formerly the apse. The current nave (formerly the apse of the original church) is a magnificent example of Norman architecture. I could go on describing this magnificent church in great detail, but I will not because plenty of people have done it before me (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bartholomew-the-Great and https://medievallondon.ace.fordham.edu/exhibits/show/medieval-london-sites/stbartsgreatchurch). Instead, I will mention a couple of the many interesting items in the church that caught my interest during a visit today (the 2nd of April 2024).

Both the objects of interest stand in the southwest corner of the church, close to the entrance that leads to the path that runs along the location of the long-since demolished apse of the priory church. The two things stand a few feet from each other. One of them is a carved stone font, said to be one of the two oldest fonts in London – the other being in the parish church of St Dunstan & All Saints in Stepney. What interested me about St Bartholomew’s font, which is still in use, is that it was here that the painter William Hogarth (1697-1764) was baptised. He had been born in a house in Bartholomew Close near the church in the Smithfield district of London.

Hogarth was a successful artist in his time, and has become recognised as one of the famous British artists of the 18th century. Not far from the font, there is a dramatic gold coloured sculpture by one of the most famous British artists of our times – Damien Hirst (born 1965). The sculpture, which is on loan from the artist, is called “Exquisite Pain.” It is Hirst’s depiction of St Bartholomew holding his skin, having been flayed. The church’s website (www.greatstbarts.com/visiting-us/artworks/damien-hirst-exquisite-pain/) revealed:

“St Bartholomew, one of the original twelve disciples, was sent as an Apostle to Armenia, where he was killed by being skinned alive. The classic iconography of the saint sees him naked, his muscles exposed, his skin hanging over his arm – and in his hands, the instruments of his torture. This statue sees Damien Hirst conform to this imagery, but give it a unique twist: the instrument in his hand is not a standard knife, but a scalpel, used in the hospital across the road which also bears the saint’s name.”

I think it is a wonderful sculpture. However, like most works of art, it might not suit everyone’s taste, but there is no doubting that its dramatic impact and skilful execution are remarkable.

While Hirst’s fame is great today, and his works command high prices, I wonder whether his reputation as a notable British artist will survive as long as Hogarth’s.

Moore and the atomic mushroom cloud at the Tate Gallery

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LAST YEAR, THE exhibits at Tate Britain were re arranged – or ‘rehung’ as the gallery likes to put it. In addition to rearranging the paintings and sculptures – very excellently I might add – previously unseen exhibits were added to the galleries. One of these is in a small gallery containing sculptures and some drawings by the British artist Henry Moore (1898-1986).

The additional exhibit in this gallery devoted to Moore is a glass cabinet containing a Ban the Bomb poster – a photomontage – designed by Henri Kay Henrion (1914-1990). I went to school in Belsize Park with one of his sons for a few years. The rest of the contents of the cabinet are documents – mainly press cuttings – about one of the sculptures near to the cabinet. They relate to a sculpture Moore created for the University of Chicago. The bronze sculpture, which at first sight resembles a combination of an atomic ‘mushroom cloud. with a distorted face beneath it, is called “Atom Piece (Working Model for Nuclear Energy)”. The Tate’s website (www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/henry-moore/henry-moore-om-ch-atom-piece-working-model-for-nuclear-energy-r1171996) explained:

“As its subtitle suggests, Atom Piece (Working Model for Nuclear Energy) 1964–5 represents the intermediary stage in the development of a much larger sculpture, Nuclear Energy 1964–6, which Moore was commissioned to make for the University of Chicago to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first controlled generation of nuclear power, conducted by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in 1942.”

The sculpture next to the cabinet is one of 13 bronze castings that Moore had made from one of his plaster maquettes that were created whilst planning the larger sculpture commissioned by the University of Chicago. Moore donated it to the Tate.

The photomontage by Henrion shows a human skull superimposed by a mushroom cloud. He created it in about 1959. The Tate’s website mentioned that Moore was most probably aware of Henrion’s terrifying image long before he created the sculpture for Chicago:

“Moore is likely to have been familiar with Henrion’s photomontage: in 1950 he had signed a letter published in the Times protesting against the potential use of atomic weapons, and in 1958 had become one of the founding sponsors of the CND.”

Although I have seen the ‘atomic’ sculpture by Moore at Tate Britain many times, I had not taken any special interest in it. However, thanks to the superb ‘rehang’ at the gallery and the addition of the glass case containing Henrion’s image, I began to appreciate the atomic sculpture, and strangely also began to enjoy Moore’s sculptures even more than I had before.

An email from the USA about a sculpture made of metal

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A COUPLE OF DAYS ago (in March 2024), I received an email from the widow of an American (USA) anthropologist with whom my father collaborated many years ago (in connection with the economic aspects of peasant society). She wrote that she had read one of my blog articles about my mother’s career as a sculptor, and wanted to let me know that she and her husband had bought one of them while my mother was alive (she died in 1980).

I asked the lady whether she could send me pictures of the piece they had purchased. She did. The piece is abstract, and made of pieces of steel welded together. At first sight, you might mistake it for a work by Anthony Caro (1924-2013). This similarity might well have arisen because my mother and Caro worked together in the sculpture studios of London’s St Martin’s School of Art.

I was pleased to receive the two photographs of the work because I remember that steel and metal working were my mother’s favourite materials for creating sculptures. After she left St Martin’s, she had a studio in a garage in Golders Green, but did not have access to welding equipment and other tools needed for making steel sculptures. Instead, she created large abstract works from heavy chunks of timber, but this did not satisfy her nearly as much as working with metal. Gradually, she lost enthusiasm for sculpting, which I felt was a great shame.

I am very grateful having received the photographs, and seeing them prompted me to write this short piece.

AMAZING SCULPTURES AND COLLAGES BY A BRITISH POP ARTIST

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HUMOUR, IMAGINATION, PLAYFULNESS, wit, social criticism, and creativity – these are all words that can be applied to the works of the artist Peter Blake, which are on show in a superb exhibition at the Waddington Custot gallery in London’s Cork Street until the 13th of April 2024.

Blake was born in 1932 in Dartford (Kent). He studied art at Gravesend Technical College, and then at the Royal College of Art in Kensington. He is a leading British exponent of Pop Art, which, according to Wikipedia:

“… is an art movement that emerged in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid- to late-1950s.The movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane mass-produced objects. One of its aims is to use images of popular culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony.”

One of Blake’s most familiar works is the album sleeve for the Beatle’s LP “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, which he designed along with Jann Haworth, his wife between 1963 and 1979. I wonder how many Beatle’s fans know that Blake was involved with making the image on this.

The exhibition at Waddington Custot is dedicated to Blake’s sculptural works. There has not been one during the last 20 years. Although there are many of his sculptures in the gallery’s three interconnecting rooms, many of his ingeniously witty collages are also on display. Employing images from comics, old books, and other printed matter, these collages are so carefully assembled that unless one looks at them closely and extremely obliquely, it is difficult to realise that these artefacts are not prints but collages.

The sculptures are with only a very few exceptions, wonderful assemblages or tableaux constructed with found objects. For example, one of these is a shelf overloaded with miniature booze bottles, all positioned beneath a miniature image of Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of the Last Supper. There are several model sailing boats, on which Blake has placed plastic models (toys) of people expressing a range of behaviours. Other sculptural assemblies are more complex and need to be seen rather than described. I mentioned ‘exceptions’ at the beginning of this paragraph. This refers to four objects – they look like large stones (one of which is a carved stone head) – which Blake called “Found Sculpture”. Each of these is mounted on its own plinth. By doing so, the artist has ‘elevated’ these natural objects to the status of ‘fine art’, and as the gallery’s hand-out said, they challenge:

“… conventional notions of artistic materials …”

I loved the exhibition. Every exhibit is both interesting and beautiful … and great fun. As the show’s hand-out correctly stated, Blake’s sculptures are:

“… by turns quirky, endearing or engaged with conceptual concerns.”

His creations:

“… offer starting points for imagined narratives, each with a glimmer of Blake’s typically gentle, English sense of humour.”

And this is quite correct. Skilfully conceived and executed, Blake’s works provide nourishment for both the eye and brain in a delightfully digestible form.  If you view the exhibition with an open state of mind, you are bound to gain great enjoyment from it.

An exhibition in London at a gallery called Parafin

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ONE OF THE MANY advantages of living close to central London is that it does not take long for us to reach the numerous commercial art galleries in Mayfair and Marylebone. Many of these hold exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, which is often fascinating to see. My mother was a sculptor, many of whose works were abstract rather than figurative. Being brought up in close proximity to someone so interested in the contemporary art world (of the 1960s and 1970s) might well have been a source of my lifelong interest in seeing works of contemporary artists (as well as modern artists who no longer live). My enthusiasm for viewing art has been enhanced by two people close to me. My wife has always had an interest in art in general and ‘modern art’ in particular. Our daughter, who works in the world of art and its propagation, has added to our enjoyment of experiencing artistic creations by recommending galleries with exhibitions that often prove to be most fascinating.

Recently, our daughter suggested that we see an exhibition, “As Above So Below”, by an artist with whom she is working. Creations of British born Tania Kovats (born 1966) are being displayed at an exhibition in a small Gallery, Parafin, in Woodstock Street (close to Bond Street Underground station) until the 24th of February 2024. Although she is known for her work in a wide range of artistic activities, she best known for her drawings and sculptures. The present exhibition includes many drawings and a few sculptural creations. The gallery’s ‘flyer’ (or handout) explained that:

“… Kovats’ enduring themes are the experience and understanding of landscape, geological processes, patterns of growth and the intersection of landscape, nature and culture and how art can speak to our critical climate crisis.”

This summarises what the artist is trying to convey with her artworks. Everything on display at the exhibition was pleasing visually and meticulously executed, but just by looking at the works I was unable to grasp anything about them but their beauty. Fortunately, the gallery’s flyer helps to explain the artist’s intentions.

Many of the works on display relate to the sea and evoke it beautifully. One exhibit, also connected with the sea, was a series of images of numbered, but un-named, graves of 20 migrants who lost their lives crossing the sea from Africa to the Italian island of Lampedusa. Near this artwork, there was another work – a line of used school shoes. This is Tania’s memorial to her son’s childhood, and (to quote the flyer):

“… explores how growth houses loss, and is built into the child’s progress towards individualisation.”

The passage of time is depicted in another work in the exhibition, “Luna”, in which a series of pictures depicting the phases of the moon as they change during a lunar month.

I am very pleased that our daughter recommended this exhibition by an artist, who we had not encountered before. Although I greatly enjoyed the exhibition, now that I write about it and reflect on what I saw and read, I feel that I would like to see the show once again because at a second viewing I will gain much more from it than during my first visit.

The force of ambition standing in Kensington Gardens

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CAST IN BRONZE, he sits aside a rearing horse. He looks west towards Kensington Palace and uses his right hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun. I am describing a cast of a sculpture by George Frederic Watts (1817-1904), which bears the name “Physical Energy”. The sculptor was born on the birthday of the conductor George Frederic Handel – hence his two first names.

Watts began work on an equestrian sculpture in 1870, when it was commissioned by Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, who became 1st Duke of Westminster. It was to depict Hugh Lupus, 1st Earl of Chester. This was at Eaton Hall near Chester. In the early 1880s, Watts began working on “Physical Energy”, which was inspired by this sculpture. The first bronze casting of “Physical Energy” was made in 1902, and transported to southern Africa.   

Watts had been principally a painter until the 1870s, when his interests moved towards sculpture. “Physical Energy” was the high point of his efforts. A plaque next to the bronze horse and rider explained that this sculpture depicted:

“… a universal embodiment of the dynamic force of ambition …”

One man for whom these words might well be applied was the mining magnate and a Prime Minister of the South African Cape Colony, Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), who ruthlessly let nothing get in the way of his ambitions. Therefore, it was particularly appropriate that one of the casts of Watts’s “Physical Energy” (that made in 1902) was placed at Groote Schuur (in Cape Town) as part of a memorial to Rhodes after Rhodes’s death. Unlike a bust of Rhodes placed nearby, which was vandalised recently, the equestrian statue has survived … so far.

An article published by Artnet News (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/watts-sculpture-royal-academy-ideological-baggage-1155971) made the following remarks:

“Watts, like Rhodes, believed in British imperial might to back its right to rule … the artist “plied” a leading politician with suggestions that military service should be introduced. (The colonial statesman Lord Grey was the man who suggested Watts turn the equestrian sculpture into a memorial to Rhodes after he died…)

… Watts’s imperialism was “liberal” and that the sculpture’s ideological meaning is open-ended. Socialists used the image, too. In fact, Watts had multicultural references in mind when he first conceived the statue: It was due to be dedicated to great empire builders including Mohammed, Attila the Hun, and Genghis Kahn. (Trowmans adds that May Watts, the artist’s second wife and a fellow artist, was much more sceptical of Rhodes.)”

The quotation mentions that Watts married twice. His first wife was the young actress Ellen Terry (1847-1928). They married when she was 16 years old. They separated after 10 months. During that brief period, she met, and was photographed by the Victorian pioneer of artistic photography, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879). I have written about both Watts and his young bride in my book about Mrs Cameron (“BETWEEN TWO ISLANDS: JULIA MARGARET CAMERON AND HER CIRCLE”).

In addition to the cast in Cape Town, at least two others were made. One of them was produced in 1959. It now stands outside the National Archives in Harare (Zimbabwe). The cast which stands in Kensington Gardens was cast by AB Burton (a founder) in Thames Ditton in 1905, and was put in its present location in 1907. It stands on a line that runs between a Henry Moore sculpture on the bank of the Serpentine and Kensington Palace. Another cast was made in 2017 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Watts’s birth. Briefly, it stood in the courtyard at the Royal Academy. Now, it stands at the Watts Gallery near Guildford.

We pass “Physical Energy” on our frequent strolls through Kensington Gardens. From it, there is a fine view of Henry Moore’s tall concrete sculpture across the Serpentine Lake. Watts was a contemporary of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). However, sadly, neither Watts nor Moore produced works as fine as those of Rodin.

[My book about Julia Margaret Cameron is available from Amazon, e.g.,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BZFCVLX9/ ]

Creating art with wood and a chainsaw

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BORN IN WHAT BECAME EAST GERMANY in the town of Deutschbsaselitz, the artist christened as Hans-Georg Kern (b. 1938), is better known by the name of Georg Baselitz. His first education in art was at Hochschule für Bildende und Angewandte Kunst in East Berlin, commencing in 1955. After two semesters, he was expelled from this academy because of his lack of compliance with the socialist diktats of the German Democratic Republic. By 1957. he was a student at the Hochschule der Künste in West Berlin. In 1961, he changed his name to Georg Baselitz in honour of the town where he was born. In 1979, he began creating sculptural works, some of which are on display at London’s Serpentine South Gallery until the 7th of January 2024.

The works being shown at the Serpentine are all made of wood. They were created between 2011 and 2015 as models (maquettes) for finished works, and as such were not originally intended for public display. The wood has a rough finish and is pitted with many saw marks. After making preliminary drawings, some of which are displayed at the exhibition, Baselitz used axes, chisels, and chainsaws to fashion huge bits of timber into intriguing sculptural forms. These works are beautifully displayed in the various spaces of the gallery.

Although Baselitz’s timber sculptures are more figurative and much more complicated than those produced by my mother, seeing them reminded me of her. After leaving the sculpture workshops of St Martins School of Art, my mother hired a garage near Golders Hill Park, and used it as her studio. There, she worked on huge pieces of wood, creating abstract sculptures. Unlike Baselitz, she had no power saws, but only chisels and a power drill. I recall that when she wanted to create a ring-shaped piece of timber, she would first trace circles on the wood and then using a power drill she would drill holes around the circumference until the circle was complete. After that, she had to smooth the edges to produce a perfect circle. It was laborious, and lifting the heavy timber (without lifting gear) damaged her back.

The works on display in the Serpentine  (and one outside it) appear to be crudely finished when looked at closely, but as semi-abstract sculptures they seem to mock the grandeur of classical Greek or Roman sculptures. Born a rebel, the artist has produced attractive works that comfortably go against the grain of traditional sculpture.

Visiting an exhibition of outdoor sculptures in a London park

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I ALWAYS ENJOY seeing sculptures displayed in the open-air. Until the 29th of October (2023) the annual outdoor Frieze Sculpture exhibition is being held in the south-east corner of London’s Regents Park. As with all the Frieze Sculpture exhibitions I have seen, this one is no exception – it displays a ‘mixed bag’ of artworks. Although many of this year’s exhibits are colourful, creative, and often playful, few of them are exceptional.

Two works struck me as standing out from the crowd. One of them, created in 2023 by Yinka Shonibare, is a folded work called “Material (SG) IV” (see photograph). This shape of this work resembles a flickering flame frozen in time. Covered in colourful patterns, the artist wanted to depict a piece of printed fabric, such as a sail, blowing in the breeze.  According to the Frieze Sculpture 2023 website, this artist:

“… creates work that explores issues of race and class through the media of sculpture, painting, photography, film, pictorial quilts and public works.”

The website explained that in the work in Regents Park:

“The fabric was originally inspired by Indonesian designs, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s the material became a signifier of African identity and independence and, in Shonibare’s hands, the ‘perfect metaphor for multi-layered identities’.”

Even though it is interesting to know what was in the artist’s mind when he created the sculpture, it is a visually fascinating and satisfying piece in its own right.

The other work that particularly attracted me was created in 1976 by the artist Louise Nevelson (1899-1988). Born in a city now in Ukraine, she emigrated to the USA in the early 20th century. It was in the States that she studied art, and then created most of her artworks. Painted black, and called “Model for Celebration II”, it is a tall abstract piece, which was:

“… Inspired by the cubist innovations of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, Nevelson reimagines painterly cubism as a sculptural opportunity.” (see https://viewer.mapme.com/frieze-sculpture-2023/location/ca758a4f-1328-48d2-a3cf-6c6b65edf794).

Unlike the other works on display in the park, Nevelson’s work has stood the test of time. So, maybe it was unfair of the curator to include such a work amongst the works of so many newcomers to the ‘art scene’. However, I was pleased to see it, as it is one of the only exhibits that I felt had profundity rather than the immediate and often short-lasting aesthetic appeal of many of the other exhibits.