Royal Academician William Tucker has exhibition on view at Pangolin London
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, November 5, 2024


Royal Academician William Tucker has exhibition on view at Pangolin London
William Tucker, Installation view.



LONDON.- Defying traditional definitions of portraiture, this new body of work from highly regarded Royal Academician William Tucker marks a new chapter in his long career of pushing artistic and academic boundaries. William Tucker (b. 1935) stands as one of Britain’s most important living sculptors. He studied history at Oxford University and drawing at The Ruskin School of Art, before attending the Central School under Leslie Thornton and John Warren Davies. In 1960, he transferred to St Martin’s School of Art where he studied with Tony Caro. Here he gained recognition as part of the influential New Generation exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1965, alongside sculptors such as Philip King and David Annesley. He then went on to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1972 and was given a one man show by the Arts Council at the Serpentine Gallery in 1973. In 1974, Tucker published his influential book The Language of Sculpture and in 1975 he organized a major Arts Council exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, entitled The Condition of Sculpture. In 2001, two major retrospective exhibitions of his work were staged by Tate Liverpool, and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. More recently, museum exhibitions of his sculpture include the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao (2015) and the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2016).

During his early career, Tucker’s work was fundamentally modernist and abstract, using industrial materials and striking colour. But after his move to New York in the 1980s he began to display an increasing interest in the human figure and modelling from plaster into bronze. Now in his late 80s, his latest work takes that exploration a stage further.

“I’ve got to a stage in my life,” he says, “where I’ve long ago left behind modernist ideas about figuration and abstraction. In the 60s, the idea of doing something so specific as to represent in sculpture a particular person would have been completely unthinkable. I wouldn’t even have considered it”.

This new series of ten portrait heads dates back to the end of Covid at a time when mask wearing was common, obscuring people’s identity. Inspired by the question of identity and the specificity of the subject in a portrait, Tucker embarked on new body of works to explore it in a physical sense. In an interview with Jon Wood, Tucker notes the influence of the Argentine writer, Jose Luis Borges, and that the subjects, though not immediately recognisable, include other literary figures such as WB Yeats and Maude Gonne.

In the exhibition, portraits of writers and fictional characters will feature alongside representations of people Tucker has known over his lifetime in what he terms ‘imaginative reconstructions’, coming together for this exhibition to face one another and the audience.

With regards to the process of making this body of work, Tucker reveals that the individual works were all orginally part of one enormous plaster of a horse – a subject he had previously explored. By cutting it up and making new work out of it, he is symbolically moving on from the past. He also alludes to assemblage and a certain anthropomorphism, sometimes referred to by scientists as pareidolia, which involves a willingness to suspend disbelief to allow figurative forms to take shape: “I was really attracted to these pieces; I started to put them together and these heads started to appear”. Tucker describes this as “a vocabulary of chunks” which, once assembled, seemed to want to become someone, developing into a character. There is a precedent for this in his work when in the 1990s he made a head from a fragment lopped off an earlier sculpture, and then went on to draw and model more heads. But the new portraits, he says, are much more specific. Executed in plaster, and cast in bronze and resin they are accompanied by a stunning series of new works on paper – drawings in charcoal, ink and watercolour, inspired by the William Butler Yeats poem ‘A Bronze Head’.

In his discussion with Jon Wood, Tucker refers to one particular work which depicts Pierre Menard, a character from Borges’ short story from the Labyrinths collection: “I just love the idea of this completely futile waste of devotion and waste of time”. He reflects: “It seems to be pretty much what I’m doing.

I don’t think of it as being futile, but I’m also putting, a great deal of thought and energy into inventing the head of somebody who never existed”.

William Tucker’s work can be found in prestigious institutional collections around the world including the Tate Gallery, the Arts Council Collection, the British Council Collection, the British Museum, The Museum of Modern Art New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York and The National Gallery of Australia, as well as permanently installed in public spaces in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bilbao, Spain and Seoul, South Korea. William Tucker’s most recent commission, a 4 metres tall bronze ‘Dancer after Degas’ is the centrepiece of Edinburgh Park’s new civic square. Tucker’s work has been recognized by various awards, including the Sculpture Center (New York) award for Distinction in Sculpture (1991), the Rodin-Moore Memorial Prize, Second Fujisankei Biennale, Japan (1995), the annual award from the New York Studio School (1999), the RA Summer Exhibition Sculpture Prize (2009), and the International Sculpture Center Lifetime Achievement Award (2010).

Pangolin London
William Tucker RA: Portraits
March 13th - April 20th, 2024










Today's News

March 13, 2024

This 1,000-year-old smartphone just dialed in

Dreams and the Sublime: The Art of Shwetlana Mehta aims to capture the human psyche.

At TEFAF Art Fair, museums make up for shrinking private sales

Meet the artist delighting Amsterdam

Ira von Fürstenberg, jet-setting princess and actress, dies at 83

Eric Carmen, Raspberries frontman and 'All By Myself' singer, dies at 74

Doyle to auction a newly discovered painting by Diego Rivera on March 13

Indigenous Mexican artist Noé Martínez has first solo at Rose Art Museum

Opening reception today at Shari Brownfield Fine Art for 'Wyoming Women to Watch'

Wait, were those shoulder straps floating?

Royal Academician William Tucker has exhibition on view at Pangolin London

'Dove Bradshaw: Zero Space, Zero Time, Infinite Heat' now open at Arte Vallarta Museo in Puerto Vallarta

Vardaxoglou is presenting a work from each decade of Robyn Denny's oeuvre

'Nicole Coson: In Passing' marks artist's first gallery solo show in the US

New gig poster series celebrates iconic Teenage Cancer Trust gigs at the Royal Albert Hall

'Poetry in the box: A tribute to the history of the Mercato del Sale and Ugo Carrega'

How 'I'm Just Ken' won the Oscars without winning an actual Oscar

'Corruption' review: Onstage, a scandal's human drama is muffled

'Barbenheimer,' and an early start, boost Oscar ratings to 4-year high

A book celebrates James Foley and confronts a man involved in his murder

Inside the Governors Ball 2024 Oscars party

Malachy McCourt, actor, memoirist and gadabout, dies at 92

Oscar glory for 'Oppenheimer' rewards studio Chief's vision

Best and worst moments from the 2024 Oscars

'Soufiane Ababri:Their mouths were full of bumblebees but it was me who was pollinated'

The Benefits of Inline Skating for Kids' Physical and Mental Development

Art Basel reveals galleries and expanded program for its 2024 edition in Basel

The Impact of Customer Reviews on Small Businesses




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful