Small Seated Figure

Small Seated Figure is related to Meadows' Armed Figures that he worked on in the early 1960s. At this stage he was making a distinct change in his sculpture from animal to human, however, the form of the body of Small Seated Figure retains a crab-like appearance. For such works Meadows drew on a number of sources including Renaissance sculptors, such as Michelangelo and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere and the ethnographic collections in the British Museum. Alan Bowness comments, 'What the armed busts have in common is an implied contrast between exterior and interior. In Meadows' words: 'The figures are armoured, aggressive, protected, but inside the safety of the shell they are completely soft and vulnerable.' Meadows relates them to tycoons 'who are protected by the paraphernalia of their offices and retinues, but who are soft inside. Bullies are frightened people' (see op. cit., p. 15).