Celebrating Anthony Caro
“As with music, I would like my sculpture to be the expression of feeling in terms of the material. Just as music is a succession of notes which make up a melody or a sonata, so I take anonymous units and try to make them cohere in an open way into a sculptural whole. I would like to be able to fuse the form and content, the meaning and sculptural expression, that it needs no other medium for an explanation.” – Anthony Caro.
Your contribution to our sculptural inheritance is second to none. Thank you from us all.
Anthony Caro
Palanquin, 1987/91
Stainless steel, painted grey in part
254 x 437 x 218.5 cm
8ft 4 x 14ft 4 x 7ft 2 in.
This week we are celebrating the life and work of Sir Anthony Caro, who was born on March 8th, 1924.
With a career that spanned more than six decades, Anthony Caro’s celebrated practice was initially informed by his strict, academic training at the Royal Academy, and his time spent as Henry Moore’s assistant in the 1950s.
Anthony Caro gained international recognition for the beauty, elegance and visual wit of his sculpture. Huge cut and welded sheets of metal are assembled in light and dynamic compositions. His monumental work, like Palanquin and Rip Cord, sited here at Roche Court, mark Caro’s exploration of the interplay between space, architecture and sculpture. Angled planes of steel twist around themselves, contracting and unfolding again, and as a result engender a sense of space. They encompass the viewer, shifting with motion and colour as we move around the work.
Pictured: Anthony Caro,Palanquin, 1987/91
In 1963, Anthony Caro’s one-man exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery brought him considerable critical attention. By exhibiting his sculpture directly on the floor, Caro waived the convention of elevating works on plinths. This departure from the tradition of the pedestal was revolutionary in terms of the relationship between art and the viewer, and created a more immediate and personal experience.
Anthony Caro
Rip Cord, 1970-1974
Steel, painted
234 x 239 x 68.5 cm
92 x 94 x 27 in.
Caro had numerous major exhibitions during his notable career, including retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1975); the Trajan Markets, Rome (1992); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (1995); Tate Britain, London (2005), and across three museums in Pas-de-Calais, France (2008), to accompany the opening of his Chapel of Light at Bourbourg. In 2012, his work was shown at both the Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA, and at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, which was then followed by a major show at the Museo Correr, coinciding with the Venice Biennale in 2013.
He was awarded many prizes in his lifetime, including the Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture in Tokyo in 1992, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Sculpture in 1997, and a number of honorary degrees from universities in the UK, USA and Europe. Caro was knighted in 1987,and received the Order of Merit in May 2000. In 1997, he won the competition for the new footbridge which was to span the Thames from St Paul’s to the new Tate Gallery of Modern Art at Bankside, London. Completed in 2000, the bridge is known as the ‘Millennium Bridge’.
Anthony Caro
Silk Road, 1971-1974
Steel, rusted and varnished
152.5 x388.5 x 86.5 cm
5ft x 12ft 9 x 2ft 10 in.
Caro’s work is held in many public and private collections across the globe, including at the Royal Academy of Arts, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; the British Museum, London; the Arts Council of Great Britain; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Government Art Collection, London, among many others.
Anthony Caro
Trivet, 1978
Bronze
20 x 32 x 24.5 cm
7 ⅞ x 12 ½ x 9 ⅖ in.
Anthony Caro’s work is currently showing at the Atchugarry Museum of Contemporary Art, Punta del Este, Uruguay for their exhibition, Anthony Caro: Sculpture as composition until April 15th, and at Annely Juda Fine Art, London, together with the work of Alan Green until March 15th.
Tomorrow, on Saturday March 8th, the Anthony Caro Centre will be holding an Open Day at the site of Anthony Caro and Sheila Girling’s former studios in Camden. The Open Day at 38a Georgiana Street, London, is free to all, no booking is required.
Pictured: Anthony Caro, Double Tent, 1987-1993, stainless steel
238.5 x 815.5 x 198 cm
The New Art Centre has exhibited Anthony Caro's work many times and most recently, presented his sculpture in 2022, featuring seven large scale works and a group of smaller painted steel sculptures - dating from the 1960s to the 2000s.
Roche Court Film Club
Pictured: Still from Art in Progress: Anthony Caro and Sheila Girling, John Wyver, Illuminations. Norman Foster discussing Anthony Caro's Flats series, exhibited at Roche Court Sculpture Park in 2007.
In February, we launched our Roche Court Film Club; a weekly arts film and documentary screening in the Design House during the winter months. For our first instalment, we were delighted to show John Wyver's film, Art in Progress: Anthony Caro and Sheila Girling.
The 2007 film documented preparations towards an exhibition of Caro's Flats series and Girling's paintings at Roche Court Sculpture Park, together with interviews from architect Norman Foster, curator Paul Moorhouse, writer and journalist Hester Westley and Director of the New Art Centre Madeleine Bessborough.
For more information about booking tickets for our next screening, click here.
Pictured: Anthony Caro at Roche Court Sculpture Park with his Flats series, 2007.
Further Reading
Caro at Chatsworth
Foreword by the Duke of Devonshire
Essays by Stephen Feeke and Martina Droth
2012
Published by the New Art Centre and the Chatsworth House Trust
Paperback
270 x 210mm
ISBN: 978-0-9558440-1-0
Produced to accompany Anthony Caro’s 2012 solo exhibition at Chatsworth
Anthony Caro: Flats
Jeremy Hunt
2007
Published by Roche Court Sculpture Park
Paperback
270 x 210 mm
ISBN: 0-9547752-7-9
Caro Vol. 1 Park Avenue Series; Vol 2 at Museo Correr
Text by Michael Fried
2013
Published by Gagosian Gallery, London
Paperback
ISBN: 9781935263807