Kenneth Armitage 1916-2002
Flat Standing Figure, 1952
bronze
height 12 inches
edition of 6, cast by Galizia

Provenance
The Artist
Mr and Mrs Kreitman

Exhibited
Venice, XXIX Venice Biennale, British Pavillion - Kenneth Armitage, S.W. Hayter and William Scott, 1958, cat no.63 (another cast)
Rotterdam, Museum Boyman-van-Beuningen, Kenneth Armitage and William Scott, June 1959, cat no.4 (another cast)
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Kenneth Armitage, July - August 1959, cat no.9 (another cast)
London, Jonathan Clark Fine Art, Kenneth Armitage: 60 Years of Sculpture and Drawing, 21 March - 12 April 2001, cat no.7 illus colour (another cast)

Literature
Roland Penrose, Kenneth Armitage: Artists of our Time Vol VII, Bodensee - Verlag, Amriswil, Switzerland, 1960, illus pl.6 (another cast)
Norbert Lynton, Kenneth Armitage, Methuen, London, 1962, illus b/w (another cast)
Tamsyn Woollcoombe (ed) in association with the artist, Kenneth Armitage: Life and Work, Henry Moore Foundation/Lund Humphries, 1997, KA22, p143



Flat Standing Figure of 1952 is quite unlike most of Armitage’s contemporary work in that it evokes a sense of complete stillness, rather than the animation of most of his sculpture of the early 1950s. The figure stands straight on to the viewer and the incredibly thin profile seems totally at odds with the apparent bulk of the initial view. The influence of contemporary European sculpture may also need to be acknowledged here as there does seem to be a definite link with Giacometti’s Standing Woman sculptures of 1949-50, and although Giacometti did not have his first London show until 1955, the Tate Gallery had acquired Man Pointing, 1947 by him in 1949, and both Paolozzi and Turnbull, fellow exhibitors in Venice in 1952, had first-hand experience of his work.