Kenneth Armitage 1916-2002
The Seasons, 1956
painted, patinated bronze
height 74.9 cm (29 1/2 in)
stamped with initials, from the edition of 6
Conceived and cast in 1956, the present work is from the painted edition of 6. 'People are funny; their bodies and actions having teasing and tantalising forms… obstinate lovable lumps...
Conceived and cast in 1956, the present work is from the painted edition of 6.
'People are funny; their bodies and actions having teasing and tantalising forms… obstinate lovable lumps of flesh continually falling short of their aspirations' (Kenneth Armitage, in 1958, quoted in James Scott and Claudia Milburn, 'The Sculpture of Kenneth Armitage', Lund Humphries, London, 2016, p.48).
The present work, 'The Seasons', is an important work within Armitage’s oeuvre, created the year that Armitage had his first show in New York, with Bertha Schaefer Gallery in March 1956, and his first partly painted sculpture. Armitage in the 1950s had turned his attention to how groups of figures that are massed together register as a single form to the spectator, before the spectator perceives the individuals. In his words, 'Joining figures together I found in time that I wanted to merge them so completely they formed a new organic unit – a simple mass of whatever shape I liked containing only that number of heads, limbs or other details I felt necessary' (The artist, quoted in Norbert Lynton, 'Kenneth Armitage', Methuen, London 1962, unpaginated).
'The Seasons' exhibits an exuberance in both form and surface that offers us a moment of excitement: the three figures caught in a moment of elation, arms aloft and outstretched, their long legs suggesting a leap of exhilaration, perhaps reminiscent of the response of a sporting crowd. The present cast includes ochre, black and blue, which suggests that the colours used may have varied between casts, the initial cast, possibly the one that subsequently belonged to Armitage's important American collector David E Bright, being painted in black and white.
The work (another cast) was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1956 alongside works by Adams, Butler, Chadwick, Clark, Frink and Hepworth, as part of an exhibition arranged by the Contemporary Art Society on the theme of the seasons.
'People are funny; their bodies and actions having teasing and tantalising forms… obstinate lovable lumps of flesh continually falling short of their aspirations' (Kenneth Armitage, in 1958, quoted in James Scott and Claudia Milburn, 'The Sculpture of Kenneth Armitage', Lund Humphries, London, 2016, p.48).
The present work, 'The Seasons', is an important work within Armitage’s oeuvre, created the year that Armitage had his first show in New York, with Bertha Schaefer Gallery in March 1956, and his first partly painted sculpture. Armitage in the 1950s had turned his attention to how groups of figures that are massed together register as a single form to the spectator, before the spectator perceives the individuals. In his words, 'Joining figures together I found in time that I wanted to merge them so completely they formed a new organic unit – a simple mass of whatever shape I liked containing only that number of heads, limbs or other details I felt necessary' (The artist, quoted in Norbert Lynton, 'Kenneth Armitage', Methuen, London 1962, unpaginated).
'The Seasons' exhibits an exuberance in both form and surface that offers us a moment of excitement: the three figures caught in a moment of elation, arms aloft and outstretched, their long legs suggesting a leap of exhilaration, perhaps reminiscent of the response of a sporting crowd. The present cast includes ochre, black and blue, which suggests that the colours used may have varied between casts, the initial cast, possibly the one that subsequently belonged to Armitage's important American collector David E Bright, being painted in black and white.
The work (another cast) was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1956 alongside works by Adams, Butler, Chadwick, Clark, Frink and Hepworth, as part of an exhibition arranged by the Contemporary Art Society on the theme of the seasons.
Provenance
Estate of the ArtistPrivate collection, UK
Exhibitions
Tate Gallery, The Contemporary Art Society, March 1956Bertha Schaefer, New York, 1956
MOMA, New York, 'New Images of Man', 1959, no.7, another cast
Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 'Kenneth Armitage/William Scott', 1959, no.14, another cast
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 'Kenneth Armitage', 1959, no.25, another cast
Literature
Roland Penrose, 'Kenneth Armitage: Artists of our Time', vol. 7, Bodensee – Verlag, Amriswil, Switzerland, 1960, pl.14Tamsyn Woollcombe (ed.), 'Kenneth Armitage: Life & Work', 1997, p.45