Modern British Sculpture Royal Academy, 22nd January-7th April
This is one of the great stories of sustained invention in British art. In the early 1900s, catalysed by Eric Gill, Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, British sculpture burst into life with an energy and originality that had eluded it for centuries. While the towering figures of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth drew the eyes of the world in the 1930s, it was in the 1950s, at successive Venice Biennales, that the British sculpture brand took flight, with Lynn Chadwick, Kenneth Armitage and Eduardo Paolozzi widening its scope. The momentum was sustained in the very different work of Phillip King and Anthony Caro, before further reinvigoration in the 1970s from Richards Long, Wentworth and Deacon and the provocative “new sculptors” of the 1980s, Tony Cragg and Bill Woodrow. It’s a story that drew to a close with the 20th century. Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread are heirs to this tradition, but as conceptual artists. Sculpture itself all but disappeared, subsumed into the mixed-media circus of contemporary art.
Curated by Penelope Curtis, director of Tate Britain, and sculptor Keith Wilson, this is the first show in 30 years to tackle the subject whole. Omissions will be controversial, as will loans from the V&A and British Museum—the loot of empire that inspired the modern. But this is not just 100 years of extraordinary work, it is a reminder of what preceded, and may outlast, Britart.
This is one of the great stories of sustained invention in British art. In the early 1900s, catalysed by Eric Gill, Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, British sculpture burst into life with an energy and originality that had eluded it for centuries. While the towering figures of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth drew the eyes of the world in the 1930s, it was in the 1950s, at successive Venice Biennales, that the British sculpture brand took flight, with Lynn Chadwick, Kenneth Armitage and Eduardo Paolozzi widening its scope. The momentum was sustained in the very different work of Phillip King and Anthony Caro, before further reinvigoration in the 1970s from Richards Long, Wentworth and Deacon and the provocative “new sculptors” of the 1980s, Tony Cragg and Bill Woodrow. It’s a story that drew to a close with the 20th century. Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread are heirs to this tradition, but as conceptual artists. Sculpture itself all but disappeared, subsumed into the mixed-media circus of contemporary art.
Curated by Penelope Curtis, director of Tate Britain, and sculptor Keith Wilson, this is the first show in 30 years to tackle the subject whole. Omissions will be controversial, as will loans from the V&A and British Museum—the loot of empire that inspired the modern. But this is not just 100 years of extraordinary work, it is a reminder of what preceded, and may outlast, Britart.
