Lynn Chadwick

Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Kenneth Armitage, Lynn Chadwick, 12 April – 15 May 1960, no.68 (another cast), illustrated in the catalogue, p.45, with tour to Ulm, Ulmer Museum; Duisberg, Städtische Kunstmuseum; Berlin, Haus am Waldsee and Nuremberg, Städtische Kunstsammlung;
New York, Knoedler Galleries, Lynn Chadwick, 3 - 28 January 1961 (another cast), illustrated in the catalogue;
Bregenz, Englischer Kunst der Gegenwart, 1977, no.58 (another cast);
 London, Grosvenor Gallery, Sculpture of the 20^th Century by British and European Artists, 21 -  31 October 2003, no.7 (another cast), illustrated in the catalogue.

David Farr and Eva Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick Sculptor: with a complete illustrated catalogue 1947 – 1996, Gloucestershire, 1997, no. 315, p.156.

Dirt has gathered in some of the crevices but the sculpture is in good overall condition. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 5381 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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Conceived in 1959 and cast in an edition of six.

In 1952, Chadwick was one of eight young sculptors chosen to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. Although each artist showed very few pieces (Chadwick showed four sculptures and four drawings), this exhibition was important for it was in his catalogue introduction that Herbert Read coined the oft-quoted phase, 'the geometry of fear'. Whilst Read's attempt to see a Jungian collective unconscious tendency within the work of the artists shown (Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Chadwick, Geoffrey Clarke, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull) has been much questioned by art historians and critics, what is undeniable is that during the 1950s, a new generation had emerged onto the international sculpture stage.

Chadwick was central to this, and his winning of the International Sculpture Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale helped to confirm his position as a leading new artist. Chadwick's fecundity of invention throughout the 1950s is clear when one considers that over three hundred pieces from that decade feature in the catalogue raisonee of his work. Within that extensive body of work, a number of themes emerge, one of the most prevalent being those derived from animal sources.

The Beast series, to which the present work belongs, began in 1955, but the genesis of this group is in Chadwick's earliest pieces, such as Balanced Sculpture 1951, where the animalistic and aggressive elements are already becoming clear. Sculptures such as the large Arcon Beast of 1953 develop this further, adding a sense of tension to the theme, the sharp angles of the sculpture and the balanced stance adding threat to the image, as if the Beast is just waiting for the right moment to make its move. This important theme would occupy Chadwick throughout his career, and some of his final sculptures continue to examine it. However, the Beasts of the later sculptures have aged like their creator, and they are often presented sitting or crouching, heavier and less threatening than their younger counterparts, but like the elder lion of a pride, their power and presence is undiminished.