William Turnbull

About

The earliest work in the exhibition is Mask 1946. Originally conceived in concrete and string it was made whilst Turnbull was still a student at the Slade, London. In 1948 he transferred his grant to study in Paris, there meeting Brancusi, Leger and becoming friends with Hélion and Giacometti. In 1950, having moved back to London, he made Horse a linear dissection of three-dimensional space that stands poised without a base. This bronze has a direct relationship to the paintings of Heads and Figure from 1956, their motifs built from thick interlinking bars of monochromatic impasto.