WORK OF THE WEEK: William Tucker, Volans A, 1970

William Tucker
Volans A, 1970
Painted fibreglass
228.6 x 317.5 x 177.8 cm
7ft 6 x 10ft 5 x 5ft 10 in.

William Tucker’s sculpture, Volans A (1970) is made from 2 articulated lengths of painted fibreglass tubing. The painted surface creates a neutral aspect, disavowing the artist’s hand and intertwining sophisticated form with vigorous architectural light and shadow. Volans A marks a shift in his practice that occurred in the late 60s and early 70s. The works became larger and more frontal, Tucker remarked, framing the spectator’s entire visual field with simple balance, yet elegant dynamism. This piece was first exhibited in 1970, at the Kasmin Gallery in New York.

With regards to Tucker’s use of fibreglass in his monumental works, Ian Dunlop wrote in his essay in the catalogue for the Whitechapel’s New Generation exhibition in 1965, “For one thing they offer the clearest way of expressing certain ideas which the traditional materials of the sculptor, stone and bronze, being relatively intractable could not offer. Secondly, they provide a way of avoiding the over-personal and over-emotional surface produced by carving and modelling.”

Born in 1935 in Cairo, Egypt, William Tucker read Modern History at Brasenose College, Oxford, whilst also attending the Ruskin School of Drawing between 1955 and 1958. He made his first abstract constructions in steel and wood while studying at the Central School of Art and Design, and subsequently as one of Anthony Caro’s most illustrious students at St Martin’s School of Art in 1959-60. Here, he met Phillip King and David Annesley, amongst other young sculptors, whose new sculpture was shown as a group in Bryan Robertson’s influential New Generation exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1965.

William Tucker, Volans A, 1970, Painted fibreglass, 228.6 x 317.5 x 177.8 cm

Throughout the 1960s, William Tucker taught at Goldsmiths’ College and St Martin’s whilst also exhibiting in London and New York. In 1972, he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale with sculptures from the Cat’s Cradle and Beulah series, as he continued to explore the idea of 'drawing in space’. He was given the first one-man exhibition at the Arts Council Serpentine Gallery in 1973, and in 1974, he published his notable collection of essays titled The Language of Sculpture. William Tucker has won many awards for his noteworthy practice, including the New York Sculpture Centre award for Distinction in Sculpture (1991); RA Summer Exhibition Sculpture Prize (2009) and the International Sculpture Centre Lifetime Achievement Award (2010).

William Tucker’s work in held in numerous major international public and private collections, including the Tate Gallery; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Holland; University of California, Los Angeles, USA; the British Museum, London; Contemporary Art Society, London and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Photography of title image: Graham Murrell.