Bernard Meadows 1915-2005
Seated Armed Figure, 1962
bronze
17½ H ins
edition of 6

Exhibited
XXXII Venice Biennale, 1964, British Pavillion -Roger Hilton, Gwyther Irwin, Joe Tilson and Bernard Meadows, illlus b/w

Literature
Alan Bowness, Bernard Meadows: Sculpture and Drawings, Lund Humphries, London, 1995, cat no.BM 81

XXXII Venice Biennale, 1964, British Pavillion
Roger Hilton, Gwyther Irwin, Joe Tilson and Bernard Meadows illustrated



Meadows first attracted international attention at the 1952 Venice Biennale when his work was exhibited in the British Pavilion alongside sculptures by Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Geoffrey Clarke, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull. In the catalogue introduction, Herbert Read coined the phrase 'the geometry of fear' - a particularly apposite description of Meadows' sculpture. For Meadows has been obsessed in his work with the representation of fear, first with frightened birds, and then with frightening armed figures. It is only in the later part of his long career, in the works of the late 1970s and early 1980s, that the mood changes, and a more sensuous, erotic element invades the sculptures and drawings.

During the 1950s, Meadows explored the formal possibilities of animal forms as vehicles for human emotions - in particular, cocks and crabs. The crab motif was inspired by Meadows' war-time service on the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, where he had spent long hours observing crab behaviour. Meadows' appropriation of animal forms was his way of finding his own voice as a sculptor, and escaping the overwhelming early influence of Henry Moore, for whom he had worked as studio assistant in 1936-9 and 1946-8, and with whom he was to develop a close working relationship.