1961
Bronze
Signed Chadwick and numbered 3/4 355
h: 55cm (including base)
Edition 3/4

Literature

Lynn Chadwick (exhibition catalogue), London, Marlborough Fine Art, 1961, illustration of another cast n.p.;
Dennis Farr & Eva Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick: Sculptor, With a Complete Illustrated Catalogue 1947-1996, Stroud, 1997, no. 355, illustration of another cast p. 174;
Dennis Farr & Eva Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick: Sculptor, With a Complete Illustrated Catalogue 1947-2005, Stroud, 2006, no. 355, illustration of another cast p. 182

Lynn Chadwick’s Trig I is an example of the artist’s exploration into the geometric deconstruction of the human form. In this sculpture, the body has been split into three main sections representing the head, torso and legs. The piece was created using Chadwick’s signature technique of welding an exoskeleton of steel rods, which he then filled with Stolit – an industrial compound of iron filings and plaster that could be worked into when wet or dry – before being cast in bronze and patinated to alter the colour and texture of the surface. Chadwick never sketched his sculptures before making them; their construction was a process of improvisation, experimenting with shapes until he reached a form that achieved the desired visual and emotive effect.

The title of the work refers to the basis of Chadwick’s sculptural language – the triangle. Triangles provided structural stability and a versatile means of creating a myriad of forms, joining to form squares and a host of other shapes, which Chadwick morphed into semi-abstracted humanoid and animal figures. His meticulous and technical mode of creating the work had its basis in the artist’s training as an architect in the 1930s and ‘40s.

Trig I relates to Chadwicks contemporary interest in the notion of watchers and strangers – existing alone or in groups, partially inspired by the carved Moai heads on Easter Island in the South Pacific. These themes also occurred in some of Chadwick’s most famous pieces of this period.

Born in London in 1914, Lynn Chadwick wanted to become a sculptor from a young age, but his family persuaded him to pursue architecture as a more ‘viable’ career. He trained as an architectural draughtsman, before joining the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot in 1941. Returning to architecture after the Second World War, Chadwick revisited his passion for art, winning a textile competition in 1946 and experimenting with mobiles, partially inspired by the work of Alexander Calder. In 1947, the Gimpel Fils gallery in London gave him a solo exhibition, which prompted Chadwick to move out of London, to a small village in Gloucestershire, where he would have room for a studio. The success of this first show propelled Chadwick onto the international stage and he quickly began to receive high-profile commissions, including two sculptures for the 1951 Festival of Britain. He was also one of the artists included in the famous New Aspects of British Sculpture exhibition at the 1952 Venice Biennale, and went on to represent Britain at the Biennale in 1956, where won the International Sculpture Prize, beating the established favourite, Alberto Giacometti. At 42 he was the youngest sculptor ever to receive the honour.

Chadwick’s lack of formal training in sculpture allowed him to create his own construction techniques, and his work has become some of the most recognisable of the 20th century. In the mid-1950s, his earlier mobile sculptures gave way to his signature angular, anthropomorphic figures, created by welding together frames of iron rods and filling them in with ‘stolit’, a plaster and iron compound.

In 1958 Chadwick bought Lypiatt Park, a sprawling manor house in Gloucestershire, where he established a foundry in 1971 and began to install his own bronze works in the gardens of his home, forming the beginnings of his own sculpture park.

During the 1960s Chadwick continued to receive high-profile commissions and was awarded a CBE in 1964. He was invited back to the Venice Biennale in 1988, where he exhibited a colossal statue that exemplifies his later style: a geometric male and female couple seated on a bench. In the 1990s, Chadwick began using triangular sheets of stainless steel to create jagged animalistic figures. In later years, Chadwick’s work became less well-known in his home country, although he remained well-established abroad. However, in the new millennium his work has been reassessed and its importance recognised. In 2001, Chadwick was elected a Senior Royal Academician and two years later, Tate Britain staged the first major retrospective of his work. Today, Chadwick’s work can be found in most major collections around the world, including the Tate Gallery, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Chadwick died at his home in Gloucestershire in 2003, five months before the Tate retrospective was due to open.