Meat Porters in the courtyard of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, 2014
We talked to Chris Ingram about buying the iconic piece Meat Porters by Ralph Brown. The Royal Academy have requested the loan of Meat Porters for their 2014 Summer Exhibition, where it is currently on display in the courtyard.
Each year, the Academy pays tribute to RAs who have passed away in the course of the previous year by including a seminal work. Meat Porters by Ralph Brown (1928-2013), conceived as a public commission for Harlow New Town’s market square in 1959, is recognised as the artist’s most significant sculptural work. This monumental bronze, conveying visceral brutality and a dark sensuality, combined with the artist’s keen social engagement, is an exciting addition to The Ingram Collection. The Ingram Collection contains nearly 100 examples of 20th Century British Sculpture, ranging from preparatory maquettes to monumental bronzes. Acquiring Meat Porters – a Grade II listed public monument – has significantly added to the range of sculpture in this publicly accessible collection.
Chris comments:”I had been looking for another monumental piece for The Collection. There are several iconic works of art in The Collection, but – by their very nature – not a lot. In recent years I had been buying more works on paper and I thought it was time for another monumental piece. And with 29 Frinks in The Collection I wanted something a bit different! Meat Porters is huge, dark, visceral and has got the perfect ‘Pow’ factor of the Modern British Art period.
Ralph Brown’s 1982 sculpture Summer Girl was already in The Collection. Summer Girl is beautiful, sensitive and rather erotic – and then Meat Porters is ‘In Your Face’ powerful! Ralph Brown certainly deserves more attention and I hope we can help with that. I enjoy tracing an artist’s career. I like to give a rounded view of an artist’s output where I can and importantly where I like the work! Sometimes I may only like one piece by a particular artist though and therefore there will only ever be one example of that artist in The Collection!
Showing the artistic process is something I enjoy – for example I’ve also bought the preparatory drawing for Meat Porters. The Collection contains quite a few preparatory drawings and watercolours – such as those by William Roberts as he arrived at those beautifully composed paintings. The great thing is that you can buy these preparatory works for a song – hardly anyone seems interested, which is fine by me!
Meat Porters is a 1959 sculpture commissioned for Harlow Market Square. I certainly don’t think that public sculptures need to be aesthetically pleasing. Public sculptural commissions are important. The reality is that a lot of people are either scared of art, or too busy to think about art. So confronting them with something unavoidable is a key way in which you are going to get people to engage with art. And that means it has to work in a different way to art in your own home or hanging in a small gallery.The whole point of public art is that it works in a different way – you wouldn’t want it in your bedroom but that doesn’t stop it from being stunning, complex, challenging and shocking. And just in case people think I’m completely weird, it’s fine if it’s an absolutely beautiful piece that you have to look at again and again.”