Annely Juda Fine Art is delighted to present its second exclusively online exhibition entitled 3 Sculptors, featuring work by Anthony Caro, Nigel Hall and David Nash. The exhibition will launch on Tuesday 14th July and will run until 31st August 2020. It can be viewed online at www.3sculptors.com.
This exhibition looks at three major, large-scale sculptures by Anthony Caro, Nigel Hall and David Nash. By looking at these sculptures in depth; in different settings and through various texts and film, key elements of each artist’s work are touched upon. These large-scale sculptures become a lens through which to explore the artists’ sculptural practice more widely.
All three artists have (or have had) well established practices that explore the fundamentals of sculptural form. Large-scale sculpture is an important part of each of their oeuvres; sculpture demands interaction from its viewer and this is tested more vigorously on an imposing scale. Sculpture, like architecture, can make us reassess our surroundings and see our environment in a new way. Often, form is directed by the material, particularly here in the case of David Nash’s charred wooden work Big Black, but also in that of the found metal objects used to create Anthony Caro’s ‘Erl King’. The strong, weathered corten steel of Hall’s Crossing (Vertical) meanwhile, perfectly renders its precise, perforated form.
Obviously, one cannot replace the experience of viewing sculpture in person however, recent events have meant that art is more difficult to access and viewing has moved increasingly online. This exhibition explores three sculptures that will never be shown inside the white cube of the gallery walls.
Anthony Caro (1924 – 2013) played a pivotal role in the development of twentieth century sculpture. After studying sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools in London from 1947–52, he worked as an assistant to Henry Moore in the 1950s. He came to public attention with a show at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1963, where he exhibited large abstract sculptures, brightly painted and standing directly on the ground so that they engaged the spectator directly. This was a radical departure from the way sculpture had hitherto been seen and paved the way for future developments in three-dimensional art. He often worked in steel, but also in a diverse range of other materials, including bronze, silver, lead, stoneware, wood and paper. Major exhibitions included retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1975), the Trajan Markets, Rome (1992), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (1995), Tate Britain, London (2005), and three museums in Pas-de-Calais, France (2008), to accompany the opening of his Chapel of Light at Bourbourg. His work has been collected by museums throughout the world. He was awarded many prizes, including the Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture in Tokyo in 1992 and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Sculpture in 1997.
David Nash has developed his sculpted work consistently over the last five decades, placing trees at the centre of his exploration. His intimate knowledge of their characteristics, both in life and in the process of change that continues after their being cut down, has informed his artistic development. Nash also casts sculptures in bronze and drawing is an important part of his practice. Nash was born in 1945 in Surrey and has lived and worked in Blaenau Ffestiniog, North Wales since 1967. Awarded an OBE for services to the arts in 2004, he has had international solo exhibitions throughout his career including the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield; Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew; Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany and the Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan. His works are held in many international public collections including the Royal Academy of Arts, London; Tate Gallery, London; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1999.
Nigel Hall is one of Britain’s most distinguished sculptors. His works, principally made of polished wood or steel, are concerned with three-dimensional space, mass and line. His abstract and geometric sculptures give as much prominence to voids and shadows as to the solidity of material and each work changes with light and viewpoint reflecting the landscapes that inspired them. Hall is well represented in numerous public collections in USA, Asia, Australia and Europe including the Tate Gallery, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has also undertaken many private and public large-scale site-specific commissions. Major solo exhibitions include the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK in 2008 and The Royal Academy, London in 2011. He was elected a Royal Academician in 2003.
