Lynn Russell Chadwick

BYDealers Auction House Biography and Notes

Born in 1914 in the London suburb of Barnes, Lynn Chadwick began his artistic career under the dotage of Roger Thomas. He is known for his bronze and steel sculptures of abstract figurative work. His sculptural approach differed from artists such as Henry Moore, in that Chadwick worked constructively, additively, first making steel armatures to which he later applied a skin. Chadwick was awarded the International Sculpture Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale--a shock especially for someone so young--over the favoured Alberto Giacometti. Miniature Figure IV (776) characterizes a major recurring theme in Chadwick’s sculpture of the human form from the 1960s onwards. The male and female figures typically are wearing cloaks, their heads rendered as rectangles or triangles. Although in miniature form, only three inches high, this sculpture holds its own and has the same presence as Chadwick’s monumental works.