The Twentieth Century Society

Campaigning for outstanding buildings

Respite from Christmas shopping (or the sales)

If you find yourself in the West End and fancy a few moments of inspiring calm, I thoroughly recommend stopping in at the Fine Art Society on New Bond St.  Their current exhibition is called CARVING IN BRITAIN, From 1910 to Now, and runs until 12 January 2013.    It’s full of domestic scaled sculptures and wall plaques, all very Eric Kennington and beautiful. examples of “direct carving”, as opposed to the practice of Victorian sculptors who farmed out their modelled works and statues to workshops which would produce carved versions using pointing machines.

It includes works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, John  Skeaping, Eric Kennington (who did the figures on the front of he Stratford Festival Theatre) and contemporary sculptor Peter Randall-Page, whose studio Alan Powers took C20 to on a memorable trip.   There’s a foundation stone cut by Eric Gill,  from a house whose fate is not described.  It’s interesting (and rather worrying) to see that this now has a substatial monetary value as a discrete object.

 

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