‘I believe that it is necessary for the artist to have feeling for the method in which he works, whatever his medium. I am pleased if the iron forms I make have a sort of organic reality, as if they were the logical expression of the materials which I use. I do not expect much vitality in my work unless this is so’ (Lynn Chadwick, quoted in exhibition catalogue, ‘The New Decade: 22 European Painters and Sculptors’, New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1955).

This unique and rare work was created in 1959 and led to an edition of nine later bronzes in circa 2002. Original iron and stolit works rarely come to the market. Their highly worked and organic surface texture allows the viewer to experience Chadwick’s original working in a manner not permitted by bronze.

Dennis Farr describes Chadwick's innovative use of iron and composite in his early works, as ‘an elaborate and carefully constructed web of welded rods [which] form triangular units that are joined together at various angles to express the planes and sharp contours of [its] body, the whole supported on thinly tapered forged legs ... the interstices of this web are filled with 'Stolit', an industrial artificial stone …. which is applied wet like plaster and which, on drying, sets glass-hard. It can then be worked and chased, coloured, or more usually left to weather. The iron armatures rust and expand or contact with moisture absorbed by Stolit, so that straight profiles become subtly curved with the passage of time, especially if the sculpture is left in a damp environment. The ribbed texture produced by this method imparts a fossilised look to the sculpture that suggests some skeletal prehistoric creature. The effect is at once eerie and startling' (D. Farr and E. Chadwick, op. cit., p.22). By rendering his figures with these innovative practices and materials, Chadwick was breaking traditionally from the sculptural practice of carving while also introducing a new vocabulary of almost skeletal abstraction into sculpture. This was immediately recognised by his peers and art critics.

By 1959 when this work was conceived, Chadwick - who only started welding in iron in 1950 - was already considered a major figure on the international sculpture stage. He was propelled to international stardom at the 1952 Venice Biennale where he was recognised along with William Turnbull, Reg Butler and Kenneth Armitage amongst others as part of a new and impressive generation of sculptors. On seeing this show, Herbert Read famously coined the phrase ‘Geometry of Fear’ to describe their work - considering it as manifesting a Post-War angst felt by many at that time. Following the Biennale, Chadwick was selected as one of only six British Artists to be included in Arnold Bode’s ‘Documenta’ in Kassel in 1955 where his work was exhibited alongside the likes of Picasso, Braque and Mondrian and received great acclaim. The following year, Chadwick went on to represent Britain at the XXVIII Venice Biennale, where he won the international sculpture prize, beating Giacometti and becoming the youngest recipient. By 1959, Chadwick had also had his first American exhibition at the Saidenberg Gallery, New York.

This powerful early maquette is the first of the series of ‘Watchers’ Chadwick began in 1959. Watchers and strangers were both themes that Lynn Chadwick returned to again and again throughout his career. This work depicts a lone figure but over the years that followed, Chadwick also conceived his watchers as a pair or in three's and they grew in size and stature. There is a tension to these forms which stand waiting, poised and immobile. It is likely they refer to the lone sentry men Chadwick would have been all too familiar with during the War. Though there is also something autobiographical about the lone ‘Watcher’. The welded armature creates vein-like ridges whilst the tactile surface of the stolit serves as skin stretched across this faceless and armless body which is reduced to blocks of mass balanced perfectly on three spindly tapering legs. As the first manifestation of arguably Chadwick's most important theme, this work is rare and significant showcasing Chadwick's skill as a sculptor, and his technical understanding of surface, space, form and weight.