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Ralph Brown RA (1928-2013)

Code: 10389

Dimensions:

Ralph Brown RA

Swimming 1959-60

Bronze edition of 6, cast in the 1960's

Cast 1. Collection of Tate Britain, London.

Cast 3.  Collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Australia.

Exh: Arts Council, Contemporary British Sculpture, open-air tour, April–October 1960 (4). 

Born in Yorkshire in 1928.

Exhibited in London in 1953 and came to prominence amongst a group of  British sculptors who included Paolozzi, Armitage and Turnbull. An early champion of his work was Henry Moore who purchased  a sculpture titled 'Mother and Child'.

His work has been shown widely and is in numerious public and private collections in the UK and abroard.

The 'Swimming' series follows the earlier 'Meat Porter' series which was a public comission for Harlow New Town.  Brown was influenced by the distortion of the figure when imersed in water as seen through a rippling surface, he had been travelling in Greeceprior to starting these works.

'Swimming' is the most prominent of a number of single figure works of the same subject, it was purchased by the Tate Gallery in 1960.

The artist wrote (14 July 1960): ‘The “Swimmers” is a recent and for me important work ... it carries my development away from realism,  while my preoccupation remains with the human figure and movement’, and added (7 November 1960): ‘It was not prompted by any particular incident, but is one of a number of sculptures I have been making on this theme, none of which however I would regard especially as studies, with the exception of one or two reliefs which for me take the place of sketches or drawings.’