BRITISH SCULPTOR SIR ANTHONY CARO
REPRESENTED BY MARLBOROUGH GALLERY
IN THE USA
Marlborough Gallery, New York, announces that renowned British sculptor Sir Anthony Caro has joined the gallery and will be represented by Marlborough throughout the United States.
Sir Anthony Caro was born in Surrey, England in 1924. He attended the Royal Academy in London and, during that time, served as assistant to sculptor Henry Moore. Throughout his career Sir Anthony has been a dedicated educator, holding teaching positions at St. Martin's School of Art in London and Bennington College in Vermont. In 1982, he founded the Triangle Artists' Workshop, an annual gathering of sculptors and painters in Pine Plains, New York. In 1987, he was knighted for his contribution to art. Sir Anthony Caro lives and works in London.
One of the most accomplished and respected sculptors working today, Sir Anthony's work is among the most innovative of the 20th century. He has been a driving force in contemporary sculpture, and as a teacher has inspired an entire generation of younger British sculptors including Barry Flannagan, Richard Long, William Tucker, Bruce McLean and Gilbert & George. His sculptural language has evolved over the years to include works in various materials ranging from steel in different forms such as I-beams and ship's buoys, to ceramic, bronze, silver, lead and wood. Sir Anthony is continuously reinventing his art by challenging his own perceptions of scale and exploring new means with which to express his artistic vision.
Sir Anthony Caro first came to the forefront of the British contemporary art scene in the early 1960s, when he began to produce abstract, welded steel sculpture, painted in bright colors. In 1966, Sir Anthony turned his attention toward small-scale steel forms. His best-known work of this period is a series called Table Pieces. Unlike his large-scale steel sculptures which were set directly on the ground, these smaller-scale sculptures rested on table tops, making the table itself an integral part of the work. In the 1970s, he began to examine sculpture on a monumental scale and abandoned his use of painted steel for materials such as raw, unfinished steel, iron, bronze and wood. In May 1970, while a critic for The New York Times, Hilton Kramer wrote of Sir Anthony: "He is unquestionably the most important sculptor to come out of England since Henry Moore...One has the impression of an artist who, having totally mastered a new and difficult area of sculptural syntax, is now permitting himself a freer margin of lyric improvisation".
Since 1980, Sir Anthony has been predominantly interested in architecturally related sculpture. He was profoundly moved by a trip he made to Greece in 1985, in which he marveled at the relationship between the sculpture and architecture at such sites as the Parthenon, Delphi, Mycenae and Olympia. In 1987, he executed a series of works inspired by Greek pedimental sculpture, including After Olympia, a monumental work inspired by the west pediment of the Temple of Zeus. In the 1980s, Sir Anthony's interest shifted toward what he calls "sculpitecture", or works that examine the relationship and create a dialogue between architecture and sculpture. In more recent years, he has collaborated with numerous architects such as: Frank Gehry, with whom he realized the 1978 Architectural Village, a network of freely constructed wooden forms and linking walkways; and Sir Norman Foster, with whom he helped produce a winning entry for the 1996 Millennium Bridge Design competition for the first footbridge to be built over the river Thames in more than a century.
In a 1995 interview with Robert Hopper, Sir Anthony stated: "One thing that I like about the nineties is that possibilities are broader for me than they have been. I can tackle things in a fresh way. And the way forward is not clear."
Among Sir Anthony Caro's innumerable one-man exhibitions in galleries and museums worldwide are a 1992 exhibition organized by The British Council and installed amid the ruins of the Trajan Markets in the ancient Roman Forum, and the largest retrospective of his work to date organized in 1995 by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. His sculpture is represented in more than one hundred public collections worldwide including: Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Art, Osaka; Tate Gallery, London; and the Tel Aviv Museum, Israel.
Large-scale sculpture by Sir Anthony Caro will be included in the inaugural exhibition opening September 18 at Marlborough's new gallery in Chelsea at 211 West 19th Street, New York City. His work will also be featured in a solo exhibition at Marlborough Chelsea in the spring of 1998.
MARLBOROUGH GALLERY
www.marlboroughgallery.com
