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Lot Essay
‘I am only interested in a form of sculpture which results entirely from the work of one individual from the beginning to the final minutest subtlety of form or texture, parallel to the work of the painters I most admire, or to musical composition or to poetry or writing’
(G. Kennethson quoted in exhibition catalogue, The Sculpture of George Kennethson 1910-1994, London, Redfern Gallery, 2014, p. 6).
Kennethson studied painting at the Royal Academy Schools from 1929-1932 but in the mid 1930s he turned to sculpture and never looked back. Standing Figure is one of his earliest recorded sculptures as he embarked on the transition from canvas to carving. The competency of this direct carving demonstrates his natural talent for revealing hidden form within a block of stone and gave him the conviction to persist with the discipline. During the 1930s, carving was enjoying somewhat of a renaissance through the work of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth who were exhibiting alongside émigrés such as Piet Mondrian and Naum Gabo, as London established itself as the centre for European avant-garde art. A Modernist vernacular would inform much of Kennethson’s carving, influenced by the likes of Eric Gill, Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who had revolutionised carving in Britain prior to the First World War. He also greatly admired Constantin Brancusi and certainly the folded arms of Standing Figure evoke those of the two embracing figures in Brancusi’s The Kiss, 1913, a sculpture that also epitomises economic carving. Kennethson once defined his fundamental ambition as ‘removing from a given block of material of a certain size and proportion sufficient of it to produce a fully three-dimensional harmony of rhythms without destroying too much of the material or wasting it’ (see G. Kennethson, ibid, p. 11).
Kennethson’s alabaster sculptures Construction (Birds) and Forms were purchased by H.S. (Jim) Ede in the late 1960s and have long been admired by visitors to his Kettle’s Yard museum in Cambridge where they are displayed alongside Gaudier-Brzeska and Brancusi. It is only recently that more of Kennethson’s stunning carvings have begun to surface as he starts to receive the attention and accolades that are long overdue.
(G. Kennethson quoted in exhibition catalogue, The Sculpture of George Kennethson 1910-1994, London, Redfern Gallery, 2014, p. 6).
Kennethson studied painting at the Royal Academy Schools from 1929-1932 but in the mid 1930s he turned to sculpture and never looked back. Standing Figure is one of his earliest recorded sculptures as he embarked on the transition from canvas to carving. The competency of this direct carving demonstrates his natural talent for revealing hidden form within a block of stone and gave him the conviction to persist with the discipline. During the 1930s, carving was enjoying somewhat of a renaissance through the work of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth who were exhibiting alongside émigrés such as Piet Mondrian and Naum Gabo, as London established itself as the centre for European avant-garde art. A Modernist vernacular would inform much of Kennethson’s carving, influenced by the likes of Eric Gill, Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who had revolutionised carving in Britain prior to the First World War. He also greatly admired Constantin Brancusi and certainly the folded arms of Standing Figure evoke those of the two embracing figures in Brancusi’s The Kiss, 1913, a sculpture that also epitomises economic carving. Kennethson once defined his fundamental ambition as ‘removing from a given block of material of a certain size and proportion sufficient of it to produce a fully three-dimensional harmony of rhythms without destroying too much of the material or wasting it’ (see G. Kennethson, ibid, p. 11).
Kennethson’s alabaster sculptures Construction (Birds) and Forms were purchased by H.S. (Jim) Ede in the late 1960s and have long been admired by visitors to his Kettle’s Yard museum in Cambridge where they are displayed alongside Gaudier-Brzeska and Brancusi. It is only recently that more of Kennethson’s stunning carvings have begun to surface as he starts to receive the attention and accolades that are long overdue.