Austin Wright
Works available
Aquarius
1973
Aluminum
238 × 200 × 162 cm / 93.7 × 78.7 × 63.7 ins
Three Hanging Pieces
c. 1970's
Aluminum
In 3 parts: 171 × 37 × 18 cm / 312 × 34 × 38 cm / 214 × 18 × 16 cm
Butcher
1974
Aluminum
260 × 55 × 75 cm / 102 1/3 × 21 1/2 × 29 1/2 ins
Biography
In 1957 Austin Wright won the Purchase Prize at the Sao Paulo Biennale and was Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at the University of Leeds from 1961-64. He lived in Upper Poppleton, on the outskirts of York from 1945 until his death in 1997, and his work, whilst widely distributed across the north of England through sales to private collectors and museums, has rarely been seen in the south.
His beautiful garden in Poppleton provided a space for his studio and workshop but the garden itself was also a source of inspiration as well as a site for displaying finished works. Nature offered him a freedom that reflected the loose hand he applied to form and imagery, an aesthetic that seemed entirely suited to his use of aluminium. More flexible and lighter than bronze, it was a material readily adapted by bending and cutting to the twists and turns of his own imagination.
The three works which have recently been added to the displays at the New Art Centre appear like strange fruit which hang from the boughs of some of the magnificent trees in the park. They are characteristic of his later work, in which his use of whip-thin metal forms three-dimensional drawings in space but which also seems to appear both human and plant-like.