Lot 200
Robert Adams (British 1917-1984) §
Vertical Form No.1, 1965, Opus 237
Auction: 27 October 2023 from 11:00 BST
Description
stamped and dated ADAMS 1965 (to base), bronzed steel
Dimensions
154.9cm high (61in high)
Provenance
Provenance
Private Collection;
Gimpel Fils, London.
Exhibited
Gimpel Fils, London, Robert Adams, 4 - 29 October 1966, no. 8.
Literature
Grieve, Alastair, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, London: Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, 1992, p.216, no. 486, illustrated.
Footnote
The results of Adams’s unusual training of evening classes at Northampton School of Art, followed by two years of independent study and experimentation, gained him his first solo exhibition, at Gimpel Fils in London in 1947; this marked the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between artist and gallery. A teaching post in the capital’s Central School of Art provided the opportunity to learn how to weld, with the result that Adams became one of the pioneers of this technique in British sculpture, along with Reg Butler and Lynn Chadwick. Vertical Form No. I of 1965 shows how Adams’ mastery of welding resulted in works of dignified, abstracted beauty. It encapsulates his favoured asymmetry and acute sympathy with the quality of his materials and was included in a solo exhibition at Gimpel Fils the following year.
As the critic Edwin Mullins wrote in 1968: ‘I believe that the essence of Adams’ brand of non-figurative sculpture lies in its capacity to embody in still metal the tensions and rhythms of the human form in motion.’ (Sunday Times, 15 September 1968, quoted by Alastair Grieve, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, Lund Humphries, 1992, p.9). Moreover, in his introduction to Adams’ touring retrospective exhibition of 1971, Charles Spencer declared: ‘There is a weightless elegance in all his sculpture, the result of superlative craftsmanship, an instinct for design and a refusal to over-state.’
