Major exhibition of Important sculpture and works on paper by Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Geoffrey Clarke, Bernard Meadows, Henry Moore, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull.
Exactly fifty years ago this year the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale presented a major exhibition entitled New Aspects of British Sculpture. Outside the pavilion the visitor was greeted with major works by Henry Moore and Reg Butler and inside there was a dramatic installation of the leading young British sculptors of the day, including Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Lynn Chadwick, Geoffrey Clarke, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull.
In the catalogue for this exhibition Herbert Read wrote of the anxiety he associated with the contemporary world and of the `iconography of despair' created by these artists. In a reference to the figuration of these sculptors and the preference of many of them for welded iron, Read described their figures as `iron waifs' whose forms represented a `geometry of fear'.
In celebration of this major event in the history of British sculpture, James Hyman Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition of work by these seminal artists.
At the heart of the show is one of the most important `geometry of fear' sculptures, Geoffrey Clarke's unique welded iron figure entitled Complexities of Man (1951), which was one of the major works at the Venice Biennale in 1952.
Henry Moore and the Geometry of Fear gives prominence to this art historically important moment, including works shown in Venice and related pieces from this period by these leading Modern british Artists. It presents major bronzes by Moore, Paolozzi's powerful Forms on a Rod (1948-49), sculptures in wood by Adams and characteristic early sculptures by Butler, Chadwick and Armitage.
The exhibition also includes a selection of major works on paper, including drawings, watercolours and collages.
The exhibition is accompanied by the first major book on the Geometry of Fear, with essays by Margaret Garlake and James Hyman.
