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| Eduardo Paolozzi Plaster for 'Mr Cruikshank' 1950 plaster Tate Gallery |
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| Eduardo Paolozzi Mr Cruikshank 1950 bronze Tate Gallery |
"In 1950 Eduardo Paolozzi discovered an illustration in the National Geographic Magazine of a wooden head in sections made by American scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was a model for testing the radiation caused by X-ray beams upon the human skull, which the scientists had randomly named Mr. Cruikshank. Working from the magazine photograph, Paolozzi made a clay copy of the wooden head and retained all the lines of division visible in the dummy. The clay head was first cast in plaster, and then in bronze. Later that year Paolozzi decided to use the plaster original as the basis for Tin Head - Mr Cruikshank. This sculpture [directly below], made from tin cans salvaged from restaurants, is unique. Using a process similar to collage, Paolozzi hammered the tin over the plaster head and then soldered the small strips of metal together."
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| Eduardo Paolozzi Tin Head - Mr Cruikshank 1950 tin Tate Gallery |
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| Henry Moore Helmet Head No. 1 1950 (cast 1960) bronze Tate Gallery |
"A protective helmet encloses a separate bronze form which includes a nose and mouth, suggesting a face. Moore made a number of Helmet sculptures, but this one is more angular and mechanistic than others in the series, evoking memories of the Second World War, in which soldiers and civilians alike used protective helmets and masks. It was made just as the outbreak of hostilities in Korea threatened to escalate into a wider international conflict, and may reflect Moore's anxieties over the threat of nuclear war."
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| Joseph Beuys Bed 1950 bronze Tate Gallery |
"Joseph Beuys [stated] that this sculpture was commissioned by Alfred Schmela and was cast from three different elements, all wooden: an old clamp, a stylised female torso (which he had carved himself) and a base plane. This arrangement was only put together for the casting. He worked in close collaboration with the caster in the casting workshop throughout the casting process and did the patination himself, deliberately making it stained and uneven. This cast is the third of an edition of six. Asked whether he wanted this work to be symbolic of human suffering, he said that he did not have this idea directly in mind and that he was more interested in an effect of levitation and space."
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| Antoine Pevsner Maquette of a Monument Symbolising the Liberation of the Spirit 1952 bronze Tate Gallery |
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| Lynn Chadwick Fisheater 1951 iron and copper Tate Gallery |
"Immediately after the Second World War, Lynn Chadwick resumed his job as an architectural draughtsman working mainly on the design of exhibition stands for the architect Rodney Thomas. At the time Thomas was making various models exploring the possibilities of physical balance as an architectural feature; some were kinetic. In 1946, apparently ignorant of Alexander Calder's mobiles, Chadwick developed Thomas's idea by suspending thin two-dimensional shapes in equilibrium. Initially the mobiles were conceived as part of the decoration scheme for exhibition stands, but in 1949 one of Chadwick's mobiles was exhibited as an autonomous artwork at Gimpel fils, London. Between 1947 and 1952 he made at least sixty mobiles, of which some were suspended and other freestanding. Fisheater was soon considered by critics to be the most important of these works."
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| Lynn Chadwick Winged Figures 1955 bronze Tate Gallery |
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| William Turnbull Horse 1954 bronze, rosewood and stone Tate Gallery |
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| Elizabeth Frink Dead Hen 1957 bronze Tate Gallery |
"Frink frequently portrayed animals in her work. Birds, in particular, began to appear in her sculpture shortly after the Second World War. They were used by her as vehicles for strong feelings such as panic, tension or aggression. They have also been read as having connotations of military might, particularly air power. Although many of Frink's bird subjects appear predatory and aggressive, the hen in this work is a victim whose pose evokes the tragic aftermath of conflict. The sculpture is one of a series, made during the same period, depicting animals in their death throes."
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| Kurt Schwitters The Autumn Crocus 1926-28, reconstructed 1958 painted concrete Tate Gallery |
"In the 1920s when the first version of this sculpture was made, Schwitters was exploring ways of combining geometric forms with more fluid, organic shapes. The sculpture twists upwards, suggesting the 'half spiral' that he identified as 'the most important of my forms.' This replica was made to stand as Schwitters' gravestone in Ambleside, in the Lake District, but the local vicar refused to have it erected."
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| Barbara Hepworth Figure (Nyanga) 1959-60 elm-wood Tate Gallery |
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| Lucio Fontana Nature 1959-60 bronze Tate Gallery |
"Nature is one of a series of works made by cutting a gash across a sphere of terracotta clay, which Fontana subsequently cast in bronze. He believed that the incision was a 'vital sign' signalling 'a desire to make the inert material live.' Fontana was concerned with transformation, and the shifting yet indestructible density of matter. The Nature series was partly inspired by thoughts of the 'atrocious unnerving silence' awaiting man in space, and the need to leave a 'living sign' of the artist's presence."
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| Christo Wrapped Cans. Part of Inventory 1959-60 metal, canvas and string Tate Gallery |
"Christo began wrapping and transforming ordinary objects such as these enamel paint tins in Paris in the late 1950s. The paint tins were bought from a hardware store, or retrieved from discarded rubbish. As the title suggests, this work was intended as part of a room-sized work called Inventory which included numerous wrapped, painted and stacked bottles, tins, barrels and wooden boxes, reflecting Christo's preoccupation with the twentieth-century phenomenon of packaging."
"The artist writes: Altogether I have probably made between 70 to 100 cans, between 1958 and 1960. . . . After a can's content had been used, I had the choice to either wrap it, or to leave it as it was. I did not paint all of those cans that were not wrapped, often the paint that is on them comes from the dripping while being used, some of the cans even have their own labels or parts of labels still apparent. . . . The Lady to whom I gave [these] 6 cans as a present is Vera Grossen (I hope it is the correct spelling?), she had been kind enough to help me in finding people in Geneva who wanted their portraits painted. Painting portraits was my main source of revenues in addition to washing dishes in Restaurants. The first person to ever buy, with real money ($50) one of the Wrapped Cans was the artist Lucio Fontana, in 1958."
– quoted texts based on curator's notes at the Tate Gallery