Reg Butler

New York, Curt Valentin Gallery, Reg Butler, January – February 1955, no.32, Illustrated in the exhibition catalogue;
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 1961 Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, October 1961 - January 1962, no.466.

Margaret Garlake, The Sculpture of Reg Butler, HMF/Lund Humphries, London 2006, no.139, illustrated p.140

The surface of the bronze is very dirty, but appears to have no scratches, dents or breaks. There are two minor spots where the existing welds need to be reinforced: where the small cut metal plate is attached to the base of one of the vertical rods of the tower structure, and at the point where two of the vertical rods meet 3.5 cm from the main surface of the sculpture. Otherwise in original condition.
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Executed in 1954, the present work is unique.
Having been apparently unexhibited since the Carnegie Institute show in 1961, the period photograph that was reproduced in the 1955 Curt Valentin catalogue, which is probably Butler’s own studio shot (see Garlake, op.cit. p.140), apparently shows what appears to be the original plaster maquette of this sculpture. From this we can conclude that in its current state, the sculpture is missing a short horizontal bar that should be attached at right angles to the base of the tower structure. As the bars of the sculpture are made from ready-made rods of phosphor bronze it should be a simple process to fabricate a replacement. The period photograph also shows two significant differences between this initial stage and the final sculpture. It appears that the shorter ‘aerial’ that now is placed to the left of the box form atop the tower was originally placed on the right, and that an inverted t-form that hung from the base of this same box form was truncated by the artist, leaving just a short rod.