Kenneth Armitage

London, Marlborough Fine Art, Kenneth Armitage, May 1962, no.5, illustrated twice (another cast); 
Kassel, Documenta III, 1964;
Norwich, Norwich Castle Museum, Kenneth Armitage, 16 December 1972-28 October 1973, no.14 (another cast), and toured by The Arts Council of Great Britain to Bolton, Oldham, Kettering, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Llanelli, Leeds and Hull. 

Kenneth Armitage, exh.cat., Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1965, illustrated on the cover (probably this cast);
Tamsyn Woollacombe (ed.) in association with the artist, Kenneth Armitage: Life and Work, Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, London, 1997, KA111, illustrated p.65.

Dirt has gathered in the crevices of the bronze, and especially at the feet of the work where it appears to have been placed outside. There are a few slight stains on the surface of the work.
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Conceived in 1961 and cast in an edition of four.

Figure on its Back (large version) is an important example of Armitage's large-scale sculpture of the early 1960s. Whilst its roots lie in the sculpture of the middle of the previous decade, with more obviously figurative pieces such as Roly-Poly of 1955 (KA53) and Sprawling Woman of 1957 (KA81) providing clear precedents, the simplified angularity of this piece was very much an indicator of the direction Armitage's work was taking.

In 1959 Armitage had moved from his original gallery, Gimpel Fils, to Marlborough Fine Art, and this had resulted in his being introduced to the Noack foundry in Berlin. Noack were very experienced with large scale casting, and although Armitage was always an artist who liked to be involved in all stages of the execution of a sculpture, this association does seem to have allowed for the production of more pieces of large size. Whilst even the smallest of Armitage's sculptures has, like that of Moore, a monumentality that seems to expand beyond its physical size, this ability to work consistently on a larger scale tied well with the pared down forms that he was using and in Figure on its Back (large version) he is able to balance the essential forms and proportions of a figure with a vocabulary that has removed all basic references to that subject. This ability to imbue a human quality into his most abstracted sculptures is very much present in Armitage's sculpture of the 1960s, and is equally seen in the Pandarus series of works that followed the present work.

The unflinching concentration on the basic elements of the reclining form seen in Figure on its Back (large version) is also in marked contrast to the emphasis much of Armitage's earlier sculpture had for groups of figures which meld together, thereby removing much of the individual character of each figure. The sculptures which had initially made his reputation in the early part of the previous decade, such as People in the Wind (KA7) or Family going for a Walk (KA15), meld the figures together in such a way that it is the unity of the group rather than the individual qualities of each element that catches the viewer's attention. However, as his reputation grew and his work became more recognised it seems that Armitage developed the confidence to present his figures alone and without the support of a group.