WORK OF THE WEEK: William Turnbull, Paddle Venus 3, 1986

William Turnbull
Paddle Venus 3, 1986
186 x 36.2 x 49.5 cm
6ft 1 ¼ x 1ft 2 ¼ x 1ft ½ in.
Signed with artist’s stamp, numbered & dated ‘5/6 86’ on base, behind figure
Cast 5 from an edition of 6 plus 1 AP

"The sculpture that I have liked is sculpture that is very simple… not ornate. Early Greek sculpture, early Egyptian sculpture… different places where the shapes are fairly simple and the colouring is fairly simple." – Extract from William Turnbull: Beyond Time, 2010.

As a student, William Turnbull spent many hours visiting the British Museum and these visits to the vast collection of Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Cycladic sculpture had a profound effect on his future sculptural output.

Paddle Venus 3 reflects Turnbull’s exploration of the totemic form. This elongated paddle has a small number of intricate carved marks in its surface, inviting the viewer to explore the entire surface of the work. Turnbull describes these marks as ‘a symbolic way of taking your eyes around the sculpture’. The shape of the paddle’s surface, its base and the small protrusion at its tip all reveal the influence of the human form.

William Turnbull was born in Dundee in 1922. From 1941 to 1946 he was drafted as an RAF pilot, travelling international during his service. In 1946 he went to the Slade School of Fine Art and identified with the Neo-Romanticism of the post-war years. Turnbull studied at the same time as Eduardo Paolozzi with whom he exhibited alongside at the 1952 Venice Biennale. He held teaching positions at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1964 – 1972, which allowed him to work in new materials, such as steel, Perspex and fibreglass. 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.

On the left is Reg Butler's 'Study for Circus', 1959.