MICHAEL AYRTON (1921–1975)
Maquette for Penetrator I
bronze
22.8 cm (8 3/4 in), long
This piece is unique, cast at the Art Bronze Foundry in 1969 as a maquette for the sculpture Penetrator I. In the finished piece the figure pierces a bronze wall.

PROVENANCE:
with Modern Sculpture Gallery, where purchased by the present owner



An archive image of Penetrator I, courtesy of the Michael Ayrton Estate

The series of Penetrators (3 versions, 1969) and Extricators (2 versions, 1970) represent a further stage of Ayrton's development of the maze theme which began with his Daedalus and Minotaur sculptures of the 1960s. They signalled his intention to abandon mazes in his sculpture: the figures burrow through the walls of their labyrinths, dwarfed but determined. However Ayrton soon came to see them as over-optimistic, and the notion of escape as illusory, writing:

When I had completed the book called The Maze Maker I thought foolishly that I was done with the image of the maze … I was wrong. The metaphor of the labyrinth is too embracing: to escape from it is to return, wishing to return. My imagery has remained mazed because it cannot be otherwise …

In fact the sculptures are inherently ambiguous, as there is nothing to show in that there is nothing to show whether the figures are in fact burrowing out of the maze or (as Ayrton found himself doing) further in. The maze became to him a symbol of all human life - he saw everybody as building around [themselves] a maze of circumstances and experiences ... at the heart of which lies [their] death, and the Penetrator and Extricator figures are Everyman, struggling as we all do in the complications of our lives.

The lack of markings on the piece results from it being a maquette rather than a finished work - the Ayrton Estate is happy to authenticate it on request.

We are grateful to Justine Hopkins from the Michael Ayrton Estate for the help with cataloguing this lot.