Our Collection of British Sculpture I A Generation of Artists 40 Years On

In the summer of 1986, the New Art Centre, then at its Sloane Street address in London, opened an exhibition of British Sculpture that spanned 1950 – 1965. It included the work of nearly 40 artists that were and continue to be significant members of their generation; William Turnbull, Reg Butler, Denis Mitchell, Phillip King, Hubert Dalwood to name a few. Many of these artists were included in Bryan Robertson’s first New Generation exhibition in 1964 at the Whitechapel Gallery, and their work is indicative of its influential effect on the development of British Sculpture.

The New Art Centre continues to offer work by these celebrated artists. Visit Roche Court Sculpture Park to see this selection, amongst many others, installed throughout the park, gardens, and award-winning gallery buildings.

William Turnbull
Paddle Venus 3, 1986
Bronze
186 x 36.2 x 49.5 cm
6ft 1 ¼ x 1ft 2 ¼ x 1ft ½ in.
Edition 5 of 6 plus 1 AP

Paddle Venus 3 is a testament to Turnbull’s unwavering exploration of objects and forms that are both timeless and totemic. This elongated paddle has intricate, yet minimal, marks carved into its surface – both front and back – which invite the viewer to explore and contemplate the entire surface of the sculpture. Hinting at a reduction of the human form – aided by the delicate rise of the surface at the tip of the sculpture, reminiscent of a nose.

William Turnbull was born in Dundee in 1922. In 1972, he was commissioned by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation to create a public sculpture for the City Sculpture Project in Liverpool. He had a major retrospective in 1973 at the Tate Gallery, as well as another at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2005. Turnbull’s work is displayed in institutional collections around the world, including: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Tate and Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran and Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen, Germany.

Reg Butler
Study for Circus, 1959
Bronze
51.4 x 19.1 x 17.5 cm
1ft 7 ⅞ x 7 ½ x 6 ⅞ in.
Edition 7 of 8

Reg Butler was born in Buntingford, Hertfordshire in 1913. In 1947 he became an assistant to Henry Moore and was appointed a Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at Leeds University from 1950-53 on Moore's recommendation.

His work was included in the Festival of Britain in 1951, and in 1953 he was awarded the Grand Prize in the ‘Unknown Political Prisoner’ Sculpture Competition. He exhibited widely, including at the Venice Biennale in 1952, and a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1983.

Hubert Dalwood
Untitled, 1974-75
Bronze
173 x 154 x 124 cm
68 x 60 ⅝ x 48 ¾ in.
Edition 2 of 2

Before 1956 Dalwood's sculptures consisted of warped figurative subjects but later shifted to abstracted forms with suggestions of anthropomorphism and landscape. Sensitive and distinctive, his work was chosen for display at the1962 Venice Biennale and he was soon in league with the leading post-war British sculptors of his time.

Hubert Dalwood (1924-1976) studied at Bath Academy of Art. After a trip to Sicily and Milan on an Italian Government Scholarship, he was awarded the Gregory Fellowship at Leeds University. His 1959 work, Large Object, won the John Moore's prize in 1959. Dalwood's work is held in numerous major public collections including the Arts Council of Great Britain; the Tate, London; Leeds City Art Gallery, Yorkshire; the British Council; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands and the Solomon T. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA.

Phillip King
Diamond Maquette, 1972
Steel
82.5 x 63.5 x 63.5 cm
2ft 8 ½ x 2ft 1 x 2ft 1 in.
Edition of 6

Phillip King was born in Tunisia, and came to England in 1945. After two years of National Service, he read Modern Languages at Cambridge University from 1955 to 1957 before completing a postgraduate year in the sculpture department at St. Martin’s School of Art. After graduating in 1958 he worked as an assistant to Henry Moore and travelled to the US where he met the sculptor David Smith who encouraged him to work in steel.

In 1959 King began teaching at St. Martin’s with Anthony Caro and Eduardo Paolozzi, and in 1960 he won a Boise Scholarship to travel to Greece, where classical architecture inspired a series of drawings in which he developed a new, abstract approach to sculptural form. King has works in major public collections including the National Gallery of Australia; Yale Centre for British Art, Connecticut; and Tate, London.

F.E McWilliam
Up and Up and On and On, 1975
Bronze with a gold patina
77 x 23.5 x 26.7 cm
30 ¼ x 9 ¼ x 10 ½ in.
Edition 1 of 5

Up and Up and On and On is part of F.E. McWilliam's 'Banner' series, made between 1975 and 1976, a variation of the small bronzes of women in movement seen in the 'Women of Belfast' group. These figures are a vigorous example of protest against war. F.E. McWilliam was interested in the interplay between solid volume and surrounding space, and how the viewer completes the 'missing' parts of the sculpture in the mind's eye.

One of Northern Ireland’s most influential and successful sculptors, F.E. McWilliam (1909 - 1992) worked chiefly in stone, wood and bronze. Studying first at Belfast College of Art, in 1928 McWilliam continued his education at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. From 1936 onwards, his works gradually became more influenced by Surrealism and he was loosely associated with the British Surrealist movement.

Denis Mitchell
Paphos, 1974
Marble
43 x 9 cm
1ft 5 x 3½ in.

Denis Mitchell was initially a painter but became renowned for his polished bronze sculptures in the 1940's. Mitchell's first sculptures began in wood, slate and stone but after working closely with Barbara Hepworth as her primary assistant between the years of 1949 -1959, he began to work principally with bronze casting.

Denis Mitchell (1912-1993) was a member of the Penwith Society which formed in 1948 and was based in St. Ives. Mitchell's work can be seen in various public collections throughout the UK including the Tate, London; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and Arts Council of Great Britain, and internationally including Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Lisbon; National Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; and Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, USA.