Kenneth Armitage 1916-2002

The Artist
His Sale, Bonham's, London, 12th October 1961, lot 54, whence purchased by Mr and Mrs Kreitman

Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Kenneth Armitage & William Scott, June 1959, no.4 (another cast);
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Kenneth Armitage, July - August 1959, no.9 (another cast);
London, Jonathan Clark, Kenneth Armitage: 60 Years of Sculpture and Drawing, March - April 2001, no.7, illustrated in the catalogue (another cast).

Roland Penrose, Kenneth Armitage: Artists of our Time Vol.vii, Bodensee - Verlag, Amriswil, Switzerland 1960;pl.6 (another cast)
Norbert Lynton, Kenneth Armitage, Methuen, London, 1962, illustrated (another cast);
Tamsyn Woollcombe (ed.) in association with the artist, Kenneth Armitage: Life and Work, Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, London, 1997, KA22, p.143.
 

Flat Standing Figure of 1952 is quite unlike most of Armitage’s contemporary work in that it evokes a sense of complete stillness, rather than the animation of most of his sculpture of the early 1950s. The figure stands straight on to the viewer and the incredibly thin profile seems totally at odds with the apparent bulk of the initial view. The influence of contemporary European sculpture may also need to be acknowledged here as there does seem to be a definite link with Giacometti’s Standing Woman sculptures of 1949-50, and although Giacometti did not have his first London show until 1955, the Tate Gallery had acquired Man Pointing, 1947 by him in 1949, and both Paolozzi and Turnbull, fellow exhibitors in Venice in 1952, had first-hand experience of his work.