For more than twenty years I have been involved with arranging Chadwick exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world; this has been a constant occupation for the gallery and reflects the artist’s standing in the international art world. One of the benefits of these shows is the opportunity for the eminent writer of the catalogue essay to provide a personal interpretation of the work, sometimes coming to the subject from an unusual angle. One of my favourites is the catalogue essay for the 1991 Hong Kong show, which amongst other mythological references saw the undoubted inspiration for an early Stranger form in Nehkebet, ancient Egypt’s vulture-goddess.
Pierre Cabanne, writing for a Paris exhibition, described Chadwick’s figures as plaster filled skeletors, “ tearing themselves free from the primordial slime, taking form and flexing their new muscles, walking for the first time.” This is a tremendously colourful analogy, and whilst providing an apposite reading for the evolution of Chadwick’s aggressive and sometime awkward creatures of the early 50s, also provides a rationale for the pyramids, the tripods and trigons that follow in the 60s. Although these are simpler abstract forms, they can be seen as the key elements in the construction of these ‘skeletors’ that re-emerge in the later figures. One of these, incidentally, is called ‘Precursor’, a transitional figure of 1964, when Chadwick was making the Pyramids, and surely presaging the return to figuration that came a year or two later.
This exhibition, our first since the ambitious two gallery retrospective show that we shared with Gimpel Fils in 1996, attempts to track this evolutionary process, with work from five decades. We have the earliest birds and beasts and emerging figures of the 1950s, a group of abstract forms from the 1960s and then a succession of figures and couples from the later years. Where possible we have tried to juxtapose variations on similar themes, where slight variations to the structure create very different visual responses. Although much of the work is in the familiar bronze we also include a group of silver casts and illustrate the stainless steel beasts, amongst the artist’s last works. The beasts bring the exhibition full circle, relating to the earliest works which the artist first re-visited on a larger scale in the late 1980s. The welded steel forms reiterate the hard edges and flat planes that can be seen in the earliest mobiles from 1950 and the later abstract shapes of the 60s.
Once Chadwick returned to figuration in the late 1960s the next twenty years saw the evolution of the now-familiar shapes, what the artist described as , “ a sort of family of figures, some of them standing, some of them sitting, some of them large and some of them small.” He was constantly re-examining posture, defining physique by using drapery, for ever moving the figures in relation to each other, and in doing so creating an endless series of tensions. One of the constant discussions in the gallery is how to determine the precise placement of one figure in relation to its partner. The figures on Stairs for example, although in close proximity, seem to barely recognise each other, the Sitting Couples, an upright and proud pair but again there appears to be little recognition one for the other, and an evident stiffness if not apprehension between them. Earlier figures are often characterised in such terms, variously described as ‘spiky’, ‘minatory presences’ and ‘superior beings’, all consistent with Herbert Read’s generic description of British sculpture of the period, the ‘Geometry of Fear’.
Concurrently with our exhibition, at Canary Wharf in London’s financial district, there is an exhibition of a remarkable group of pyramids made from formica and wood. Shown once in 1966, they have not been seen since that time. Prefiguring the triangular heads that appeared for the first time a few years later, Chadwick is here making a radical departure, experimenting with new materials, as ever testing his ideas in a new framework. Strangely I do not find these simple shapes dehumanised and shown as they are in groups they seem to have many of the congenial qualities of what the artist would later describe as his ‘family groups’.
Also at Canary Wharf a group of the powerful late works in stainless steel can be seen, inspired by the earliest Beasts from the 1950s. Positioned close to the urban architecture of the area they literally reflect the glass and steel of the towering nearby office blocks.
The larger sculptures of course do not fit into the gallery, and even if they did would not provide the right visual context for the work. And so this catalogue includes both work that will be on show in the gallery and also a number of excellent photographs of larger sculptures in outdoor settings, taken by Jimee Meigh who has been photographing Lynn Chadwick’s work at Lypiatt Park for a number or years, and also by Chadwick’s photographer daughter Sophie who has successfully captured the sculptures over the years.
Chadwick was one of the first artists to be chosen for the city of Westminster’s now very successful ‘Sculpture in the Parks’ programme. For many years now we have actively supported this initiative and the ‘Sitting Couple 1989’ can be seen in Berkeley Square until the end of the year. We get a huge response from these installations, and there is no doubt that they achieve their desired aim, to bring visual art to a wider audience. London has yet to seize the opportunity for large scale sculpture installations seen in other major cities around the world and we are working to rectify this.
In this same spirit we have recently arranged an installation of several major Chadwicks at Logan College in the city of Chesterfield, Missouri. This excellent initiative is under the auspices of Chesterfield Arts, working with local companies and institutions to place major sculptures throughout the area.
This the first major sculpture exhibition for Berkeley Square Gallery under its new name Osborne Samuel which has come about since the gallery merged with Scolar Fine Art in the summer of this year and Gordon Samuel joined me here. My thanks go to Peter Willberg who designed the catalogue and to Tania Sutton from the gallery, but above all my thanks to Eva Chadwick and to Sarah Marchant who have been incredibly helpful, allowing us to borrow key works from the estate and providing all the necessary information for the catalogue.
Peter Osborne |
