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
Exhibitions
São Paulo, São Paulo Bienal, Ten Young British Sculptors, 1957 (British Council cast), touring to: Chile, Uraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Peru
Venice, British Pavilion, Kenneth Armitage, S.W. Hayter & William Scott, Summer 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)
Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Kenneth Armitage, Lynn Chadwick, 12 April–15 May 1960, cat no.15, (another cast), touring to:
Ulm; Duisberg; Berlin; Nurnberg
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- September 1961
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 in Japan, 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)
New Delhi, Lalit Kala Akademi, Nine Living British Sculptors, 17 November - 1 December 1965 (British Council cast), touring to India
Belfast, Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, British Sculpture 1952-62, 1 May - 30 June 1967 (British Council cast), touring to: Norway, France, Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon
United Arab Emirates, Eight British Sculptors, 1 January - 12 July 1969 (British Council cast), touring to: Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon
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
Tenerife, British Council Office, International Sculpture Exhibition, 1974 (British Council cast)
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century, 11 September 1981–24 January 1982, illus, p133 (another cast)
Paris, Artcurial, Kenneth Armitage, Sculptures et Dessins, 1948-1984, May - July 1985, ex. cat. (another cast)
Kiev, Ukrainian Museum of Fine Arts, For a Wider World, June 1990 (British Council cast), touring to: Luxembourg, Bulgaria and Argentina
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)
Mannheim, Kunsthalle, Menschenbilder Figur in Zeiten der Abstraktion, October 1998 (British Council 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)
Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum, Blast to Freeze: Britische Kunst Im 20. Jahrhundert, 14 September 2002 - 19 January 2003 (British Council cast), touring to: Les Abattoirs, Toulouse
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Fall Out: War and Conflict in the British Council Collection, 26 March - 30 May 2010 (British Council cast), touring to Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury
Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, The Sculpture Show, 17 December 2011 – 24 June 2012, this cast
Bath, Victoria Art Gallery, Kenneth Armitage 1916-2002 Centenary Sculpture Exhibition, 10 September - 27 November 2016 (British Council cast), touring to The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University Library, Leeds.
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).
Collections
Another bronze from this edition is in the collection of the Arts Council of Great Britain
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