Taylor was born in 1935, the oldest of three children, to a poor, working-class family. Perpetually drawing, even whilst avidly reading his library books, he was encouraged by his school art teacher and a career in the arts seemed likely, if not inevitable. After time spent at Epsom and Ewell School of Art and Crafts, Taylor was persuaded to apply to the Slade School of Arts in London. In his application Taylor wrote that he was interested in “the study of people; their psychology, character and way of life” – concerns which certainly manifested in his work. In 1954 Taylor successfully enrolled for the Slade’s Diploma in Fine Art but ‘reacted immediately and vehemently to what he perceived as an elitist, public school atmosphere’, at odds with his humble and hardworking background. Adjustments remained difficult throughout this period of schooling. He loved to work from life but found the discipline of the life-room at the school impossible. He developed an intuitive, individualistic response to the model, which, remarkably, his teachers found unacceptable.
During Taylor’s second year at the Slade Henry Moore was to visit a teacher-friend. Moore’s praise for Taylor’s independent vision marked a ‘turning point in the way his work was perceived by the school’. It is said that Taylor established an immediate rapport with Moore, saying that the ingenious sculptor was a “Yorkshire man who spoke to me directly”. One a living legend and the other a novice, the pair found companionship through their mutual interest in the formal power of early sculpture. Indeed, Taylor often frequented the British Museum to look at Archaic, early Greek, Persian and Babylonian work.
Taylor won myriad prizes as a student; the life-size clay nude Boy from Antigua earned him the Rome Prize – a three-year scholarship to the Italian capital. A wonderful anecdote records Taylor having to hire a sex worker at 500 lire an hour as the Slade refused to give him extra funds for a professional life model. He was mesmerised by the city’s art collections, modern and ancient alike, including specific examples of the Belvedere Torso as well as the oeuvre of modernist sculptor Medardo Rosso.
Taylor only rarely exhibited his sculptures publicly since the early 1960s and they remain best known to a select circle of friends, patrons and enthusiasts. In 1998 Taylor was elected a member of the Society of Portrait Sculptors and the Royal Society of British Sculptors.
