Kenneth Armitage 1916-2002
Alan Bowness recalls that his studio contained, 'objects of an entirely urban environment: books and magazines, chairs, a bed and a folding screen, a telephone, a pile of children's toys, among them a large model army tank'. 2
It was in the forms of this man-made environment that Armitage found an aesthetic that he would apply to the human figure. The simplified and flattened form of Figure Lying on Its Side, 1957, echoes the structure of the artist's folding screen, yet the bulkiness of the figure, its sense of mass, mimics the solidity of his model tank. Armitage was interested in the structures which underpinned contemporary architecture and this made him more aware of the underlying vertical and horizontal lines in his work.
'I became… interested in structure. Most of us spend our day vertically on our feet and at night we rest horizontally. We live in a world of verticals and horizontals…' 3
Placing the figure on its side allowed Armitage to foreground the connection between the sculpture and the ground (and by extension, the wider world). His desire to 'ground' the sculpture is furthered here by the female subject's inadequately proportioned legs, which suggest that she is rooted to the spot, unable, or disinclined to get up. Lying on the ground, she has an animalistic vulnerability, like an upturned beetle or fallen cow. The subject of falling, toppled and top-heavy figures, is found in the work of other post-war British sculptors such as Elisabeth Frink and Bernard Meadows and in the series of fallen horses made by Italian sculptor Marino Marini, such as Fallen Rider, 1957.
1 Tamsyn Woolcombe in association with the artist, Kenneth Armitage, Life and
Work, Henry Moore Foundation/Lund Humphries, London, 1997, p34
2 Alan Bowness, introduction to Kenneth Armitage, Whitechapel Retrospective
exhibition catalogue, 1958, p8
3 Norbert Lynton, Kenneth Armitage, Methuen, London, 1962, p1
Provenance
Private Collection, USA
Private Collection, UK
Exhibitions
Venice, British Pavilion, Kenneth Armitage, S.W. Hayter & William Scott 1958, XXIX Venice Biennale,
cat no.76, illus b/w, another cast
London, Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., Critic’s Choice 1958, David Sylvester, 1– 26 July 1958, cat no.29, illus p23, another cast
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Kenneth Armitage & William Scott, 3–30 June 1959, cat no.20, illus, another cast
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Kenneth Armitage, July–August 1959, cat no.32, illus, pl xiv, another cast
Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, Recent British Sculpture, 13 April 1961, cat no.8, illus, another cast, touring to;
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, August- September1961
Winnipeg Art Gallery, September- October 1961
Norman Mckenzie Art Gallery, Regina College, November
Art Gallery of Toronto, January- February 1962
Ontario, London, Public Library and Art Museum, February- March 1962
Vancouver Art Gallery, March- April 1962
Auckland Institute and Museum, July 1962
Wellington, Dominion Museum, August- September 1962
Dunedin, Otago Museum, October 1962
Christchurch, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, November- December 1962
Perth, West Australia Art Gallery, January- February 1963
Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, July- August 1963
Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, September- October 1963
Brisbane, Queensland Art Gallery, November- December 1963
Newcastle War Memorial Cultural Centre, January 1964
Canberra, Albert Hall, February 1964
Tokyo, Bridgestone Art Gallery and other venues, including Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, July-August 1964
Hong Kong, City Hall Art Gallery, August- September 1964
London, Tate Gallery, 54–64: Painting and Sculpture of a Decade, 22 April- 28 June 1964, cat no.204, illus, artist’s cast
Norwich, Castle Museum, Kenneth Armitage, 16 December 1972-14 January 1973, cat no.11, illus b/w, p14, another cast, touring to:
Bolton; Oldham; Kettering; Nottingham; Portsmouth;Plymouth; Llanelli; Leeds; Hull
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century, 11 September 1981- 24 January 1982, illus, p133, another cast
Leeds, City Art Galleries, Herbert Read: A British Vision of World Art, 25 November 1993- 5 February 1994, cat no.10, fig 153, illus b/w, another cast
London, Barbican Art Gallery, Transition: The London Art Scene in the Fifties, 31 January- 14 April 2002,
cat no.4, illus, p66, another cast
Literature
Roland Penrose, Kenneth Armitage: Artists of our Time Vol.vii, Bodensee - Verlag, Amriswil, Switzerland, 1960, cat. no.19, illustrated (another cast);
Charles Spencer, Kenneth Armitage, Academy Editions, London, 1973, illustrated p.9 (another cast);
Tamsyn Woollcombe (ed.) in association with the artist, Kenneth Armitage: Life and Work, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, London, 1997, KA67, p.144, illustrated p.47 (another cast).
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