Lynn Chadwick
Born London, 24 Nov 1914; died 25 April 2003.
British sculptor. He worked as a draughtsman for various architectural firms in London from 1933 to 1939, this being his only artistic training. During World War II he was a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, but continued his architectural work from 1944 to 1946. He worked independently in Gloucestershire (1946–52), specializing in design. He won a textile design competition organized by the Ascher firm in 1946 and during this period he produced designs for textiles, furniture and architecture. This economic freedom allowed him to begin experimenting with sculpture, his first works being mobiles such as Dragonfly (1951; London, Tate), which he began to produce in late 1946. These were generally based on insect and bird forms and suggest the influence of Alexander Calder. Chadwick’s mobiles were exhibited at his first one-man show at the Gimpel Fils gallery in London in 1950 and this was followed by a commission to produce two sculptures for the Festival of Britain in 1951: one mobile and one stabile. Having then found his vocation as a sculptor he attended a welding school in 1950 to enable him to tackle large-scale works.
After about six years of producing mobiles Chadwick began to make open, welded constructions, sometimes incorporating glass, as in the Inner Eye (1952; New York, MOMA). In 1953 he moved on to produce solid sculptures, creating works of a highly abstracted human form, executed in a novel technique. One of the first of these was Conjunction (1953; London, Tate), made from an iron rod cage filled with a material called Stolit, an artificial stone. Like most of Chadwick’s figure works up to about 1970 the work disturbs the viewer by its skeletal, distorted form. He later also used a filling made from iron powder and water that could then be weathered, patinated or chased. Using either method, bronze casts could be, and often were, made from these models. In addition to the human form Chadwick made a number of sculptures of aggressive, angular creatures, such as Idiomorphic Beast (1953; Bristol, Mus. & A.G.). In 1956 he won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale, which firmly established his reputation, and in 1958 he moved to Lypiatt Park in Gloucestershire, where he lived for many years. From 1959 to 1962 he created a series of Watcher works: standing abstracted figures, which stare in a blank, menacing manner at the viewer, as in Two Watchers (1960; Cologne, Mus. Ludwig). In 1962 the sculptor was invited, together with Calder and David Smith, to execute works at the Italsider steel works for an exhibition at Spoleto in Italy, and there he first worked with welded sheet steel.
In the 1960s Chadwick underwent something of a crisis in his art. Responding to the Minimalist movement he produced a number of geometrical, pyramidal works, sometimes coloured, as in Group of Pyramids (1965–6; see Levine, p. 91). However, he was never happy with total abstraction and later viewed these works as merely undeveloped ideas. By 1967 he had returned to a form of figuration and in 1969 produced the notable series of Elektra sculptures, such as Group of Elektras (1969; see Levine, p. 97). These were executed in bronze and had highly polished faces and breastplates, which contrasted with the dull finish elsewhere, so creating a tension between the overall figurative form and the abstract, polished areas.
After the 1970s Chadwick’s sculptures lost their previous anguished, aggressive aspect. Concentrating almost wholly on the human figure he produced works that were softer in form and often embodied movement, as in High Wind (1980; see Levine, p. 109). He also produced several paired figures, invariably following the gender convention that the female had a triangular face and the male a rectangular one, as in Pair of Walking Figures (1977; see Levine, p. 110). In the late 1980s he began experimenting with sculptures constructed from sheet stainless steel as in Sitting Figures (1989; see 1989 exh. cat., p. 22). Enjoying particular success in the 1950s, Chadwick was, with Reg Butler and Kenneth Armitage, one of the group of sculptors that was seen as continuing the prestigious reputation of British sculpture established by Henry Moore. Chadwick himself has been described as Moore’s logical successor. He was awarded the CBE in 1964 and was created an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1985.
"Chadwick, Lynn." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T015692 (accessed May 1, 2012).
