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| Eduardo Paolozzi Michelangelo's David ca. 1987 plaster, plywood, string Tate Gallery |
"Paolozzi was walking past Harrods store one morning and saw a window dresser setting up a display which included a plaster cast of the head of Michelangelo's marble sculpture of David. He temporarily borrowed the cast from Harrods and had another cast made from it at the Royal College of Art. Paolozzi sawed his cast in pieces and glued wooden blocks in the cuts. The attack upon the cast is partly a comment on the great plaster cast collection of antique sculptures that used to belong to the Munich Academy of Arts, and which was largely destroyed during student riots in 1972. When Paolozzi was a student at Edinburgh College of Art in 1943, part of the teaching was to draw from casts of Michelangelo's David."
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| Veronica Ryan Relics in the Pillow of Dreams 1985 bronze and plaster Tate Gallery |
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| Dorothea Tanning Nue couchée 1969-70 textiles, cardboard, table-tennis balls Tate Gallery |
"Tanning recalled with pleasure the way this sculpture was once displayed at the Zabriskie Gallery, New York – placed on a low plinth and encased in Perspex – and how this had reminded her of a scene described in Phantastes (1858) by the Scots writer George MacDonald. In his novel the hero enters a cave and discovers a block of pure alabaster in which he can dimly see the sculpted form of a beautiful woman. Entranced by her beauty, he sings to her and brings her to life. But the woman proves to be an evil spirit who nearly lures the hero to his death. This shows how those who would separate Tanning's work from a context of imaginings miss its fantastical and narrative dimension. It also throws light on the gulf that has emerged between Tanning's own vision of her work and those of the critics and historians who would analyse it in terms of gender and sexuality. Criticising writers who have focused on feminist or psychoanalytic interpretations of her images, she herself has stressed in her writings and statements that her works spring, on the one hand, from her sensuous pleasure in colours and in the materials of art, and, on the other, from ideas emerging from her unconscious. For her, mystery and surprise are integral elements of her work, its core subject matter."
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| Elisabeth Frink Small Male Figure with Goggles ca. 1968 plaster Tate Gallery |
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| Michelangelo Pistoletto Venus of the Rags 1967, 1974 marble and textiles Tate Gallery |
"Venus of the Rags juxtaposes an over-life-sized classical statue of the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility with a large pile of brightly coloured discarded clothes that are heaped on the floor. The Venus statue is positioned with its back to the viewer. The figure's face and body press lightly against the pile of fabrics that rises up before it, so that the front of the statue is hidden. Pistoletto has made several versions of Venus of the Rags. In the first, shown in 1967, he showed a concrete or cement Venus, which he had purchased from a garden centre and covered with a layer of mica to create a glittering surface. He made three further versions in the same year using plaster casts of this original Venus statue. In 1970 Pistoletto produced two versions using a larger plaster Venus. In 1972 he made a version with a gold-covered Venus. The present work is a unique version produced in 1974, for which the Venus was made by stone masons in Tuscany using a special Greek marble containing mica. In 1980 a version of Venus of the Rags was enacted in a performance held in San Francisco, with a live model replacing the statue."
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| Anthony Caro Twenty Four Hours 1960 painted steel Tate Gallery |
"This is a seminal piece in the history of British art, as both Caro's first abstract and first welded sculpture. He abandoned the figure following a visit to the USA in 1959 where he was in close contact with the American art critic Clement Greenberg and such abstract painters as Kenneth Noland. Constructed from found pieces of steel, Twenty Four Hours reflects the impact of American art on Caro and belonged to Greenberg at one time."
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| Henry Moore Seated Woman 1957 plaster and wood Tate Gallery |
"Henry Moore's Seated Woman 1957 is a larger than life-size plaster sculpture of a female figure seated on a wooden bench. This work was later used to cast the sculpture in bronze in an edition of six plus one artist's copy. When Moore first started working in plaster he regarded the sculptures as stages towards the production of a bronze and not as artworks in their own right. Plaster sculptures were often returned from the foundry covered in sealants and resins or in pieces. Initially Moore destroyed the plaster originals after a bronze edition had been cast, to ensure that no additional, unauthorised sculptures could be produced. However, Moore's attitude towards his plasters shifted over time, and he began to see them not only as intermediary stages in the creative process but as unique objects with a distinct character. In the early 1970s Moore declared, 'these are not plaster casts, they are plaster originals . . . they are actual works that one has done with one's hands.' Moore went on to recount the moment when he began to reconsider the value of his plasters: 'A friend who works at the Victoria and Albert Museum came out one day just as we were breaking up some plasters and said, 'But why do that, because sometimes the original plaster is actually nicer to look at than the final bronze.' He was right, because sometimes an idea you've had and that you've made in the original material or plaster can suit it better than what the final bronze may do.' Having decided to stop destroying his plasters, Moore was then faced with the problem of what to do with them. Selling them on the open market would increase the risk of casts being made without his permission, but he did not have the required space to keep the plasters indefinitely. A solution was found by way of philanthropic gift, first to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto in 1974, and then to the Tate in 1978."
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| Ghisha Koenig The Machine-Minders 1956 casting cement, metal, wood Tate Gallery |
"Koenig's principal subjects were people at work. This sculpture represents two men minding vats at an ink factory in Kent, one of six factories in which Koenig visited regularly between 1956 and 1957. The figures are approximately half life-size. She developed the sculpture from drawings made from life, firstly by making a clay model in her studio. Her choice of working class subjects links Koenig with 'Kitchen Sink' painters such as Jack Smith, who depicted the harsh realities of life in post-war Britain. But Koenig also belonged to a community of artist émigrés, including Joseph Herman, who drew on a tradition of European realism."
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| Jean Arp Pagoda Fruit 1949 bronze Tate Gallery |
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| Frank Dobson Torso 1933 Portland stone Tate Gallery |
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| Barbara Hepworth Sculpture with Profiles 1932 alabaster Tate Gallery |
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| Henri Matisse Reclining Nude II 1927 bronze Tate Gallery |
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| Kellock Brown Ju-Jitsu 1923 bronze Tate Gallery |
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| Jacques Lipchitz Reclining Woman 1921 plaster Tate Gallery |
"The origins of this small sculpture lie in a commission Lipchitz received from the designer Coco Chanel for a pair of firedogs for a rococo-style fireplace. He designed each of the firedogs in the form of a reclining woman, composed from figure-of-eight curves. Chanel then commissioned him to make a sculpture for her garden, for which this is a study. The garden sculpture was never completed, but the study, which drew on the earlier work, was an important departure for Lipchitz in its curvilinear shapes and its subject of a reclining woman. It is also one of the first hand-sized modelled maquettes made by the artist."
– quoted passages based on notes by curators at the Tate in London