© Geoffrey Clarke; photography by Doug Atfield
Square World I – V (1959), a unique series of five reliefs by Geoffrey Clarke, has been acquired by The Ingram Collection, the biggest privately owned publicly accessible collection of Modern British art. Originally commissioned for St Chad’s, Rubery, Birmingham, the reliefs are amongst the earliest examples of Clarke’s work in aluminium, and as such mark a key development in 20th Century sculpture.
Having earned respect as a sculptor in forged iron – work that resulted in Clarke’s selection for the famous 1952 Venice Biennale – Geoffrey Clarke began to experiment with material and form, turning to aluminium for its lightweight properties and ‘modern’ aesthetic.
The Square World series of five open cast reliefs is one of Clarke’s first works in this new medium. Bold and linear in design, the series has not been seen by the public since it was removed from St Chad’s shortly before the church’s consecration in 1959. The Ingram Collection plans to display this new acquisition at The Lightbox (2008 Art Fund Prize winner), where Chris Ingram’s collection of 500 paintings and sculptures – including more than 350 by the most important artists of the Modern British era – is on loan.
Commenting, Johanna Baring, Curator of the Ingram Collection, said: “Geoffrey Clarke has been hugely influential as a sculptor, receiving numerous public commissions, many for religious settings. In Square World I-V, Clarke expresses the meeting of the celestial with the terrestrial and achieves a modernity that perhaps proved too brave at the time, resulting in the commission being removed from St Chad’s so swiftly.”
“Square World I-V is an important addition to the already significant Modern British sculpture holdings within The Ingram Collection. It is a bridge from the ‘Geometry of Fear’ of the 1950s to a period of rapid change and expansion in British sculpture. The Square World series shows British Modernism at its most creative and influential. That the sculptors of Post-War Britain laid the foundation for further innovation and development in successive generations of British sculptors is particularly clear in Square World I-V.”
Modern British sculptors represented in The Ingram Collection include Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Robert Clatworthy, Sir Jacob Epstein, Dame Elisabeth Frink, Eric Gill, Bernard Meadows, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, William Turnbull and Leon Underwood.