William Turnbull - The Eternal Now: Works from the Artist’s Estate

William Turnbull - The Eternal Now: Works from the Artist’s Estate

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 10. WILLIAM TURNBULL | BLADE VENUS 1.

Property from the Estate of William Turnbull

WILLIAM TURNBULL | BLADE VENUS 1

Lot Closed

June 17, 01:21 PM GMT

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Estate of William Turnbull

WILLIAM TURNBULL

1922-2012

BLADE VENUS 1


stamped with Artist’s monogram and numbered A/C

bronze

height (excluding base): 96cm.; 37¾in.

Conceived in 1989, the present work is the one Artist's Cast aside from the edition of 6.


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Amanda A. Davidson, The Sculpture of William Turnbull, Henry Moore Foundation & Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2005, cat no.267, illustrated p.176 (another cast).

London, Serpentine Gallery, William Turnbull, 1995 (another cast);

London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull, 1998, cat no.1, p.16, illustrated p.17 (another cast);

London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull, 2004 illustrated p.32 (another cast);

London, Sotheby's S|2, William Turnbull, 9 October - 17 November 2017, p.140, illustrated p.17 (another cast).

In the catalogue raisonné of Turnbull’s sculpture, which was written in close collaboration with the artist, Amanda Davidson, explains the origins of the Blade Venus series:


'The idea of metamorphosis in Turnbull's work is at its most intense in the Blade Venus series. These large sculptures suggest the shapes of Chinese knives, Japanese Samurai swords, pens, paintbrushes, leaves and goddess figures in one elegant, slightly curved form. Their form and inspiration relate them to the Zen paintings that inspired Turnbull and to the calligraphic paintings, drawings and reliefs that he produced in the 1950s. Like a single gesture, with a wide and a thin section, they combine all of the breadth of the front view with the slenderness of the side view in one perception. Part of their ambiguity and their dynamic presence stems from the spectators' simultaneous ability to see both the wide element and the narrow section as the handle or the blade or tip of the tool. Although they are absolutely still they are also balanced on their sharpest point, poised to act.'


(Amanda A. Davidson, The Sculpture of William Turnbull, Henry Moore Foundation & Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2005, pp.72-73).