Robert Adams 1917-1984
Divided Column, 1952
Birch
22½ inches high


Exhibited
Oxford, Black Hall, St Giles, Seven British Contemporary Artists, 15-27th May 1952, cat no.30, one of five sculptures exhibited
London, Gimpel Fils, Robert Adams, March - April 1953, cat no.1

Literature
Alastair Grieve, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, Henry Moore Foundation & Lund Humphries, London, 1992, cat no.142, illus p166



This sculpture was one of three works entitled Divided Column to be exhibited in a solo exhibition at the Gimpel Fils Gallery in spring 1953. The two further sculptures of the same name were carved from holly and African wood, and all appear to refer back to an earlier work made in elm, Divided Pillar, 1951. This form closely resembles the top section of this earlier work, which could be read as the 'head' and 'neck' of a standing figure. In these later works, the figurative conotations are very faint indeed. A tall cylindrical drum is split open vertically, pierced with a hole ( a residual eye or mouth perhaps), and rises around an internal core which has grown through a thin round collar offset above a round base.

Alongside conventional gallery exhibitions in the early fifties, Adams also participated in a number of privately organised exhibitions at the studio of artist Adrian Heath. In 1953, Heath held three exhibitions of constructive abstract art, in which Adams was the only sculptor showing with a core group of painters - Victor Pasmore, Kenneth and Mary Martin, and Adrian Heath. Other artists who exhibited works included William Scott, Eduardo Paolozzi, Terry Frost, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth.