Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1110745
William Turnbull 1922-2012 Metamorphic Venus 3, 1982 Inscribed, dated and numbered '4/6' Bronze with York stone base. Cast at the Livingstone Art Foundry in an edition of 6.. Bronze: 24 3/4 x 16 x 3/4 in, 62.9 x 40.6 x 1.9 cm Base: 3 3/4 x 7 1/2 x 5 in, 9.5 x 19.1 x 12.7 cm Provenance Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York Private Collection (acquired from the above, 2002) Exhibitions London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull: Horses - Development of a Theme, Other Sculptures and Paintings, June-July 2001, cat no.13, illus. pp.28-29 (another cast) In the 1950s Turnbull sought a new rawness to his work that was based on an exploration into the language of signs and symbols. In this period Turbull began to make sculptures in an 'arrow head' form, a shape he returned to regularly throughout his career. The arrow shape of Metamorphic Venus has notable similarities to pre-historic tools and the diamond-form of Ancient Egyptian schists as well as to Early Cycladic figurines, which have similar wide-shouldered torsos and long thin noses. Like these ancient sculptures, Turnbull's work is defiantly flat and frontal, a radical departure from the canonic form of sculpture practiced by Moore which invites the viewer to move around the work. The reference to metamorphosis clearly refers to the process of making art, as Turnbull translates objects into figures and figures to objects. Metamorphosis was of course also central to Moore's work. Similarly to Moore, Turnbull developed ideas on the connection between man and nature, exploring the relationship between man and history, past and present. The form and title of the work also refer to ancient fertility figurines, playing on notions of the eternal female and representations of femininity.