The Victoria Memorial is one of London's best known landmarks, yet its sculptor Thomas Brock (1847-1922) has not been seriously studied. This thesis considers this works in the context of the New Sculpture movement. Brock worked for eight years in the London studio of John Henry Foley, and a further eight completing Foley's unfinished commissions. Meanwhile his own distinctive style was developing, and he was one of the first of his generation (which included Hamo Thomycroft and Alfred Gilbert) to show French influence in such works as Hercules strangling Antaeus (1869), the Snake Charmer (1877) and A Moment of Peril (1880), which was purchased by the Chantrey Fund and helped secure his election as an ARA. A close relationship with Frederic Leighton was established during this period; Leighton modelled his Athlete wrestling with a Python in Brock's studio and made use of Brock's expertise in bronze work. When elected RA in 1891, Brock's diploma work was a bronze bust of Leighton and he later executed the Leighton Memorial in St Paul's Cathedral (1902). Although his ideal marble statues The Genius of Poetry (1891) and Eve (1898) won the praise of the critics, Brock concentrated more on meeting the growing demand for commemorative statues and busts. His style was vigorous and realistic, with an eye for detail and attention to surface, finish and the overall harmony of the sculpture, its pedestal and the proposed site. He was particularly successful with his portrayal of Queen Victoria, his statues for Hove and Worcester being replicated in a dozen cities in Britain and the Empire. In his most important work, the Victoria Memorial, Brock incorporated many New Sculpture allusions. Although it has received a mixed critical reception over the years, as a popular public monument it has stood the test of time. The artistic and technical merits of its sculptor deserve to be more widely recognised, as does his contribution to the New Sculpture movement generally.

This thesis explores Louise Bourgeois' practice as a matrix of strategies, and is positioned in opposition to the psycho-biographical approach that has dominated writing about Bourgeois' art. I take Giacometti's title at its most literal: that the object may disagree with the discourse around it. Chapter one places Bourgeois in her moment of the 1940s to historicize an artist who is seen as out-of-time and to explore her early strategies. Chapter two considers Bourgeois' studio as an alternative site for meaning in her work. Her studio strategies can be seen to be at once invisible, dominated by her personality and biography and yet simultaneously central to the curatorial and commercial activities. Bourgeois' narratives, that dominate our understanding of her work, are discovered to operate mythically (Midgley). I interrogate the status of Bourgeois' words and her self-images in relation to her objects. I suggest that they exist in a complex relationship to the sculptures, slipping between context and sculptural intervention. Consequently, there are moments when it can be argued that even Bourgeois' body is a part of her work. Hence, I undermine the art-life trajectory, not by separating the artist from the work, through the expressive fallacy and the critique of authorship, but by paying close attention to the blurring between life and art. The inevitable conclusion is that, in a very real sense, the art may be producing the life. My final chapter investigates how Bourgeois' objects co-opt the audience as one's peripatesis becomes a walk into her environments and in some cases one substitutes for the sculptural symbolic object. Concluding with Bourgeois' most recent work I ask if her most well known art of recent years is best understood in terms of her aging and examine how understanding an aging subjectivity may alter our perception of Bourgeois' work.

No description available.

Workshop practices and the making of sculpture: authorship and collaboration in the work of Eric Gill, 1909 to 1940. This thesis examines the making of sculpture and the identity of Eric Gill in the first half of the twentieth century. A period of complex practical and theoretical innovation in Britain, histories have tended to be simplified, focussing on the idea of direct carving as an autonomous and isolated process. Gill was a key figure in this period and his persona as an isolated craftsman and art-world exile has precluded balanced accounts of the collaborative nature of his work. The study maps the complexities of sculptural practice lying behind the ideologies of modernist production, interrogating ideas of sole authorship that have developed around the notion of direct carving. It advances understanding of Gill’s workshop practice and his collaborative work with his patrons, assistants and the art market. Extensive archival research has enabled a detailed mapping of Gill’s workshop practices and professional relationships to create a study which explores all aspects of the collaborative nature of making sculpture. The thesis covers the following research questions: how has authorship been presented in discussions about early twentieth century sculpture and has this changed since Gill’s death; in light of this how has Gill's work and workshop been presented during his lifetime and since? How did Gill position himself as an artist-craftsman within the workshop and beyond? Finally, how do these presentations relate to the realities of producing sculptures at this time (workshops, patrons, the art market) and what can a detailed study of these realities tell us about the making and presentation of the artist as author? In mapping the making of sculpture in this period the study presents a new appreciation of the complexities and collaborations that were, and are, a reality for many sculptors. The study provides an alternative perspective on the nature of authorship, creative and practical collaboration, and a new understanding of public perceptions of sculptors at the time. Finally, this thesis places the work, and workshop, of Eric Gill in the context of the critical reception he received and presents a broader appreciation of his collaborative processes.

This thesis explores the early career of Eduardo Paolozzi (1924 – 2005), focusing in particular on his artworks of the 1940s and 1950s. Predominantly known for his post-World War Two activity as an eclectic artist, designer and pedagogue, Paolozzi emerged as an experimental alternative to the modernist formalism of Henry Moore’s generation and remains one of the acknowledged leaders of an artistic movement that helped invigorate the British art scene. The sheer volume and diversity of his creative output, however, its wide-ranging use of descriptive materials and profuse interests, has legitimised the now standard reception of his work as one of wilful, perhaps even whimsical, eclecticism. Thus, he has become simultaneously codified as British artist, child of Surrealism, and ‘father of Pop.’ The thesis presented here intends to offset the standard historiography of Paolozzi’s artistic development, employing instead an interpretation grounded in the artist’s Italian roots and which takes into consideration his exposure to wider avant-garde movements and trends. Such a re-evaluation enables sense to be made of the imagery and ideas present in his work, and gives shape to the superficial incoherence of the ‘fragmentary’ phases apparently marking his output. What emerges is an alternative trajectory, one that moves from the early collages, full of L'Esprit Nouveau and Futuristic enthusiasm for the New World, through his use of Greco-Roman art, mechanisation and Uomo Novo during the years of Fascism, to the more concerted reassessment of the modern post-War world that is embodied in his satirical brutalist sculptures and proto-Pop demythologies, these last works mapping an emergence out of totalitarianism and the rediscovery of ‘democratic and international values.’ In this new analysis, Paolozzi stands as one of the few international figures who consistently developed a mature and idiosyncratic rationale through which a new, non-Fascist modernism was reformulated.

Sir John Steell was the most eminent and respected Scottish sculptor of his generation. He set new standards of achievement during his long and prolific career, and consistently worked towards the advancement of Scottish arts. He executed many important public monument projects for Scotland and Great Britain, and sent work to India, New Zealand and the United States. He introduced fine art bronze casting to Scotland, creating the Grove Foundry in Edinburgh in 1849 to cast the Scottish National Monument to the Duke of Wellington. Designated Sculptor in Ordinary to Her Majesty for Scotland by Queen Victoria in 1838, Steell earned a deserved reputation as the finest sculptor in Scotland. Until now, there has never been a comprehensive assessment of Steell’s life and work. The thesis and accompanying catalogue raisonne examine Steell’s career by focussing upon his major monument projects, but also assess his portraiture work and activities within the Scottish Victorian art world. Steell matured as a sculptor within a nation that was maturing aesthetically. Previous generations of Scottish sculptors with talent and ambition were essentially forced by market conditions to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Steell was the first Scottish sculptor to have a major international career while remaining in Edinburgh. Steell’s success was often used as an example that Scottish sculpture had achieved parity with sculptural practice in England and Europe. The thesis examines the conditions that allowed Steell to enjoy such a huge level of success in Edinburgh, and places Steell in context with English and European counterparts. The thesis also assesses the political and social conditions in Edinburgh that allowed Steell to dominate the local market. Also addressed are Steell’s activities within the Royal Scottish Academy, and his relationship with the Board of Manufactures, which provided early patronage and assistance. In terms of patronage, projects, methods, style, genres, display and opportunities, Steell’s career offers an excellent example of the conditions under which Victorian sculpture was created. Steell sculpted the most eminent and famous Britons of hs day, and played an essential role in the commemoration of such individuals as Sir Walter Scott, Wellington, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria for Scotland. The thesis and catalogue comprehensively examine the life and art of the man known for over fifty years as Sculptor for Scotland.

Responding to the works of artist Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963), this research aims to interrogate the social and spatial experiences of childhood, starting from the personal, childhood memory. Whiteread offers a curious collection of objects, furniture, toys, utensils, photographs and junk. Casting and collecting are Whiteread’s primary methods of artistic creation, of creative play, and these processes are at the centre of this thesis. Casting and collecting transforms objects – their uses and forms, and thus subsequent meanings and associations. Melanie Klein (1882-1960) was an early pioneer of child analysis, developing her distinctive method of the play technique. A key founder of British objects relations theory, Klein’s method incorporated creative play with objects and toys. Klein and Whiteread hold objects in common; play sits alongside casting and collecting. I use Klein’s theories to open up the childhood house of Whiteread and her methods of casting and collecting. The three chapters of this thesis, Closeted Childhoods: Closet (1988); Siblings and Seriality: Untitled [One Hundred Spaces] (1995); A Photographic Portrait of House (1993-94), draw on different aspects of Kleinian and psychoanalytical theory in response to Whiteread’s own childhood memory-work. Kleinian themes addressed include destruction and reparation, guilt and envy, loss and mourning, with the conclusion returning to that first object, the mother, and the presence of the maternal in Whiteread’s works. Primarily, I argue that Whiteread’s sculptural casts and installations are those materialised secrets of hidden and concealed childhoods denied by a mythology of familial unity. Significantly, I consider how the autobiographical childhood remembrance holds relevance for wider concerns of social and spatial experience – public and private.

Bodo Muche (1939 Radeberg – 2017 Glenhowden/AU) Durch seinen wissenschaftlich engagierten Vater, den Entomologen Werner Heinz Muche, wurde bei ihm frühzeitig die Liebe zur Natur geweckt. Er nahm ihn mit zu gemeinsamen Erkundungen in der Heimat und förderte somit bei seinem Sohn die ein Leben lang anhaltende Faszination für die Schönheit jeglicher Lebewesen, die sich immer wieder in seinen späteren Bronzeplastiken widerspiegelte. Die Kleinstadt Radeberg wurde ihm beizeiten zu eng. In Berlin am Staatlichen Tierkundemuseum wurde er zum Präparator ausgebildet, weitere Studienrichtungen waren Zoologie, Anatomie, Kunstgeschichte und Design. 1958 verließ er die DDR, plante in der Schweiz seine wissenschaftliche Afrika-Reise, die ihn über Ostafrika und Tansania nach Betschuanaland (Botswana) führte. Über 17 Jahre arbeitete er in Studios in Tansania und Botswana, zunächst als Begleiter von Jagdsafaris und Präparator, später wandte er sich dem Naturschutz zu und der künstlerischen Gestaltung von Tierskulpturen, die er im Bronzegussverfahren/ Wachsausschmelzverfahren herstellte (Lost-wax casting). 1978 übersiedelte er mit seiner australischen Ehefrau Robyn nach Australien, gründete mit ihr in Glenhowden sein „Bodo Muche Foundry Studio“ und später ein zweites Studio in Los Angeles/USA. Er gehört weltweit mit zu den bekanntesten und gefragtesten Bronzegießern, der seine Skulpturen von „Minimal bis Maximal“ schuf, sogar berühmte Rennpferde in Lebensgröße für Auftraggeber in Sidney und den Oman.

L'objet de cette thèse est l'étude de la part métaphysique dans l’oeuvre sculptée de Jean Tinguely (Fribourg 1925 - Berne1991). La problématique majeure est celle de l'aspect contradictoire d'une oeuvre à la fois anti-académique issue de l'influence dadaïste mais dont la dimension métaphysique la rapproche d'une tradition spéculative de l'art. L'étude de lasculpture de Jean Tinguely se fait sous deux axes principaux : l'art comme jeu plaisant et l'art comme pourvoyeur devérité. / The topic of this PhD thesis is the study of the metaphysical aspect of the sculptural work of Jean Tinguely (Fribourg 1925 –Bern 1991). The main argument is the contradictory conception of a work which is anti-academic in the dadaist attitude,but which metaphysical dimension makes it close to the speculative tradition in art. The study of the sculptural work of JeanTinguely follows two main perspectives: art as pleasant game and art as purveyor of truth.

Der erste städtebauliche „Entwurf zu einer Siedlung im Stadtteil Trachau“ aus dem Jahre 1925, wurde im Hochbauamt der Stadt Dresden erarbeitet. Die Bearbeitung erfolgte auf der Grundlage einer weitsichtigen „Studie zu einem Bebauungsplan Groß – Dresden“. Bis zum Jahre 1927 /1928 erarbeitete im Hochbauamt eine Arbeitsgruppe von vier Architekten einen endgültigen Bebauungsplan. Die Stadt Dresden beteiligte sich durch Bereitstellung von Bauland und Finanzmitteln als Gesellschafter am Gesamtvorhaben. Für den Aufbau der zukünftigen Großsiedlung Trachau wurden vier Bauträger beauftragt, die bis 1932/33 tätig waren. In ihrem Auftrag arbeiteten die Architekten Hans Richter, Hans Waloschek sowie die Architektenfirma Schilling + Graebner. Wie ein Modell des Stadtbauamtes zeigt, wurden die Auffassungen der Neuen Sachlichkeit bevorzugt. Mit der “Machtübernahme“ durch das NS-Regime im Januar 1933 wurden die Baumaßnahmen abrupt unterbrochen und der Bebauungsplan entsprechend einer traditionellen Bauweise neu konzipiert. 1994 wurde die Wohnungsgenossenschaft Trachau Nord iG gegründet. 1995 wurde die Wohnungsgenossenschaft im Genossenschaftsregister eingetragen und im gleichen Jahr der Kaufvertrag unterzeichnet. 1996 Auftragserteilung, Analyse des Bauzustandes und Baubeginn. 2000 Abschlussarbeiten der Freiflächengestaltung in der Sommerperiode. Insgesamt 60 Seiten mit 9 Lageplänen, 11 Grundrisszeichnungen, 24 Abbildungen, 1 Perspektive