The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College is pleased to present the United States premiere of Anthony Caro-A Life in Sculpture: The Kenwood Series from August 27 through October 23, 2005. The exhibition includes thirteen recent sculptures in stoneware and steel by one of the world’s most celebrated artists and Britain’s greatest living sculptor, Sir Anthony Caro. The opening reception will be held on September 17th from 7 until 9 p.m. Preceding the opening, from 4 to 5 p.m., independent curator and art critic Karen Wilkin will give a special lecture, “Anthony Caro: Tables, Myths, and Metaphors” in the Scripps Humanities Auditorium.
The works in this exhibition were first shown in Hampstead Heath, London, an event marked by both Caro’s 80th birthday and a major retrospective at the Tate Britain. After making its debut stateside at Scripps College, The Kenwood Series will travel to Bentley Projects in Phoenix, Arizona and finally to the organizers of this traveling show, Garth Clark Gallery, New York, NY.
Caro is widely acknowledged as an innovative figure in the history of 20th century sculpture. In the 1960s and 1970s he was recognized for his colorful abstract steel sculptures whose multiple parts, interplay of solid and transparent forms, and direct placement on the floor created a new syntax of sculptural form. After working for many years with flat sheets of steel, Caro was drawn to clay for the expressive possibilities he found in its mass and heft, exploring volume and voids. Although Caro worked with modeling clay in the 1950s, it was not until 1975, with the assistance of Margie Hughto in Syracuse, New York, that Caro turned to stoneware. In 1993, Caro began collaborating with ceramist Hans Spinner on the clay components for sculptures that he would later combine with metal and wood, creating such series as The Trojan War (1996-1997 ), The Last Judgment (1995-1999), and The Barbarians (1999-2000).
In 2004 Caro returned to work with Spinner in his studio near Cannes, on the Côte d’Azur to create The Kenwood Series. Like his earlier works, these are multi-part sculptural collages of clay and steel and introduce a new domestic theme. These works often suggest still life arrangements, surprising the viewer with abstract forms that suggest real things-bottles, books, or bread in combination with abstract shape-blocks, cylinders, and spheres.
Born in 1924, Caro earned an engineering degree in 1944 from Christ’s College in Cambridge. He continued his education at the Royal Academy Schools, London, where he studied sculpture from 1947 to 1952. In 1949 he married painter and fellow student Sheila Girling. Starting in 1951, Caro began a two-year apprenticeship with Henry Moore. From 1953 to 1979 Caro taught at St. Martin’s School of Art, London, guiding a generation of British sculptors including Barry Flanagan, Richard Long, and Gilbert and George. While in the United States from 1959 until 1960, Caro met American artists David Smith, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell and Kenneth Noland who encouraged the artist’s development as an abstract sculptor. Since then Caro has achieved international recognition with exhibitions in the United States, Belgium, Canada, England, Italy, Japan, and Spain.
It is fitting that The Kenwood Series is featured at Scripps College where the renowned Ceramic Annual exhibition (now 62 years old) and the Marer Collection of Contemporary Ceramics have made the College a vital center for the study of art and clay. Accompanying the exhibition is a color-illustrated catalogue with an introduction by Julius Bryant and interviews with Anthony Caro. The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery is located in Claremont, CA, at Eleventh Street and Columbia Avenue, adjacent to Baxter Hall. The Gallery is open to the public, free of charge, Wednesday through Sunday, from 1 until 5 p.m. For more information please contact the Gallery at (909) 607-4690.