22nd Apr, 2021 14:00

Modern & Post-War British Art

 
  Lot 338
 

ALAN THORNHILL (1921-2020)

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ALAN THORNHILL (LOTS 338-353)
ALAN THORNHILL (1921-2020)

Self portrait
signed with monogram AT (lower right)
charcoal, unframed
69.5 x 51 cm (27 1/2 x 20 1/4 in)

PROVENANCE:
Artist's estate

The following 16 lots feature sculpture, paintings and works on paper by sculptor Alan Thornhill who worked from his studio in Putney from 1960 onwards.

Alan Thornhill first trained as a potter, but during the 1950s was attracted increasingly to sculpture. Over the following sixty years he developed a range of innovative sculptural approaches and techniques to explore his abiding interest in clay and his fascination with the articulation of mass in a wide range of subject matter, large and small.

Explaining his methodology he wrote: ‘Deliberately devoid of "initial idea" my work is propelled by the process of improvisation. It evolves as an act of faith from an abstract into a figurative or at least an organic statement in accord with my general aspiration: to arrive by an uncharted route at images which strike home.’

Of Thornhill's working process, his daughter Anna Thornhill wrote: [he] ‘pioneered a radical and improvisatory approach to clay work that involved dispensing with an internal armature and allowing content to emerge from his unconscious. Abstract pieces of the 1960s developed into large groups of figures. Pacifism, Jungian psychology and world conflicts were themes that emerged organically in his work.' (The Guardian, 1 May 2020).

His sculptural output ranged from portrait heads of leading figures from the arts, education and politics, to a series of monumental life-sized figurative compositions that evolved from his imagination during the 1970s and 1980s. Subjects for his heads included playwright Tom Stoppard and concert pianist and neighbour, Kathron Sturrock (lots 344 & 345). Nine of his large-scale works form the Putney Sculpture Trail. Inaugurated in 2008, the trail is the largest permanent outdoor sculpture collection by one artist in London. Two of Thornhill's larger-scale works are included in this sale (lots 339 & 340).

Thornhill grew up in Fittleworth, West Sussex and was educated at Radley and New College, Oxford where he read History. During the War he served as an officer in the Gloucestershire Regiment, and took part in the D-Day Landings, but after the bombing of Dresden by the Allies he became a conscientious objector.

After the War, following Reichian therapy in Norway, Thornhill enrolled at Camberwell School of Art where he specialised in ceramics, and then spent a year at Farnham School of Art, further honing his skills as a ceramicist. In 1951 he set up Hawkley Pottery near Stroud and taught at Stroud School of Art. He sold his pots in Heal’s, and was selected for the Council of Industrial Design’s Index of Good Design.

But, as he tired of the repetitive nature of potting, so he explored the purely sculptural possibilities that clay offered, encouraged by friends Lynn Chadwick and Jack Greaves. Then, on being offered a teaching post at Kingston School of Art in 1959 he moved to London, where he set up a new studio in Putney. He later went on to teach sculpture at Morley College and the Frink School of sculpture.

Thornhill had several one-man shows, including at the Drian Gallery, Marble Arch; The National Theatre, South Bank; the Orangery, Holland Park; Putney Exchange; St Catherine’s College, Oxford; Kingscote Park, Gloucestershire and Galerie Jean Camion, Paris. In 2012 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Museum in the Park, Stroud.

For more information on the works of Alan Thornhill visit www.alanthornhill.co.uk

Sold for £238

Includes Buyer's Premium


 

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