Lynn Russell Chadwick

Lynn Russell Chadwick (24 November 1914 – 25 April 2003) was an English sculptor and artist. Much of his work is semi-abstract sculpture in bronze or steel. His work is in the collections of MoMA in New York,the Tate in Londonand the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.Chadwick was born in Barnes, London, and attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood. While there he expressed an interest in being an artist, though his art master suggested architecture was a more realistic option. Accordingly, Chadwick became a trainee draughtsman, working first at the offices of architects Donald Hamilton and then Eugen Carl Kauffman, and finally for Rodney Thomas.Chadwick took great inspiration from Thomas, whose interest in contemporary European architecture and design had a significant effect on his development. His training in architectural drawing was the only formal education he received as an artist. He recalled: "What it taught me was how to compose things, a formal exercise in composition, really, it has nothing to do with the building it represents"

 In 1956, Chadwick was chosen by the British Council as one of the lead sculptors to represent Britain at the XXVIII Venice Biennale. He was awarded the International Sculpture Prize, becoming the surprise winner and surpassing the favourite Alberto Giacometti, as well as César Baldaccini and Germaine Richier, and making him the youngest ever recipient of the prize. Following this critical esteem, Chadwick was talked of as the natural successor to Henry Moore as Britain's leading sculptor and artistic ambassador.
Following the Biennale, this exhibition toured Vienna, Munich, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels before arriving in London. In May 1957. Chadwick's first solo show in the United States took place at Saidenberg Gallery. Also in 1957, the Air League of the British Empire commissioned him to make a sculpture to commemorate the round trip flight across the Atlantic Ocean by the Airship R34 in 1919. Chadwick made a maquette, but complaints about the work caused the commission to be dropped.

 During the 1960s, Chadwick's work, which had been situated by critics within the aesthetic of post-war sensibility, fell victim to changing fashions during the rise of Pop Art. However, he continued to receive a steady flow of public commissions and private sales – particularly in Italy, Denmark and Belgium. Chadwick was invited to participate in the Sculpture in the City exhibition at the fourth Festival of Two Worlds at Spoleto, Italy in July 1962, to create a large outdoor sculpture alongside nine other sculptors including David Smith and Alexander Calder. The result was Two Winged Figures 1962, his first steel sculpture, which was made at the Italsider steel works in Genoa.Chadwick and Smith became good friends during this period, and remained so until Smith's early death in 1965.
Lynn Chadwick, Two Winged Figures, 1962. Welded Steel, 296 x 559 x 328 cm
In a catalogue essay on an exhibition of Chadwick's sculptures and drawings at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro in January 1962, Herbert Read noted that Chadwick has consolidated his style and subject matter since winning the 1956 Sculpture Prize at Venice, saying ..."He is still preoccupied with states of attention or alertness in the human figure or the animal. His aim is to incorporate a moment of maximum intensity, and this he does by the most direct means – the reduction of bodily attitudes to their magnetic lines of force"...Wikipedia