WILLIAM TURNBULL (BRITISH, 1922-2012) §
MALE AND FEMALE, 1954
£6,000
Auction: 27 March 2019 from 13:00 GMT
Description
signed and dated (to reverse), oil and sand on canvas
Dimensions
90cm x 71cm (35.4in x 28in)
Footnote
Note:
'Male & Female' depicts an abstracted and exaggerated interpretation of the figural form, and is representative of Turnbull's work both in sculpture and paintings in the mid-1950s. The composition is closely related to the 'Acrobat and Female' monotype in the Tate Gallery Collection, London with thin stick-like figures in the manner of Giacometti, whose studio he had visited whilst living in Paris between 1948-50.
Captivated by 'primitive' works, and in particular the cave paintings at Lascaux in France, with their immediacy and rawness of the early human form, Turnbull explored similar notions in the present lot. The skeletal figures in 'Male & Female' are fragile beings, stripped to only that which was necessary - and it belongs to the same grouping of works described by the critic Herbert Read as part of 'the geometry of fear' as Kenneth Armitage's Lying Figure (Lot 90).