Anthony Caro
Encyclopedia
Sir Anthony Alfred Caro, OM
, CBE
(born 8 March 1924 in New Malden
, then in Surrey
) is an English
abstract
sculptor
whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using 'found' industrial objects.
and Christ's College, Cambridge
, earning a degree in engineering
. In 1946, after time in the Royal Navy
, he studied sculpture at the Regent Street Polytechnic
before pursuing further studies at the Royal Academy Schools from 1947 until 1952.
when working as an assistant to Henry Moore
in the 1950s. After being introduced to the American sculptor David Smith
in the early 1960s, he abandoned his earlier figurative work and started constructing sculptures by welding or bolting together collections of prefabricated metal, such as I-beams, steel plates and meshes. Often the finished piece is then painted in a bold flat colour.
Caro found international success in the late 1950s and for a time was popular in the US. He was also influential as a tutor at St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
in London inspiring a younger generation of abstract British Sculptors led by former students and assistants like Phillip King, Tim Scott
, William G. Tucker
, Peter Hide
, and Richard Deacon; as well as a reaction group including Bruce McLean
, Barry Flanagan
, Richard Long
and Gilbert and George
. He and several former students were asked to join the seminal 1966 show at the Jewish Museum
in New York entitled, Primary Structures
representing the British influence on the "New Art".
Caro taught at Bennington College
from 1963 to 1965, along with painter Jules Olitski
and sculptor David Smith
.
He is often credited with the significant innovation of removing the sculpture from its plinth, although Smith and Brâncuşi
had both previously taken steps in the same direction. Caro's sculptures are usually self supporting and sit directly on the floor. In doing so they remove a barrier between the work and the viewer, who is invited to approach and interact with the sculpture from all sides.
In 1980, Caro was trying to organise an exhibition of British abstract art in South African townships when he met Robert Loder
. In 1981, when staying in New York State, the pair developed the idea of running workshops for professional artists which became the Triangle Arts Trust
. They held the first Triangle workshop in 1982 for thirty sculptors and painters from USA, the United Kingdom and Canada at Pine Plains, New York.
In the 1980s, Caro's work changed direction by introducing more literal elements with a series of figures drawn from classical Greece
. Latterly he has also attempted large scale installation
pieces. One of these large pieces, Sea Music, stands on the quay at Poole in Dorset. To mark his 80th birthday, a retrospective exhibition was organized by the Tate Gallery
in 2005. He was knighted
in 1987 and received the Order of Merit
in May 2000.
In 2008, Caro opened his "Chapel of Light" installation in the Saint Jean-Baptiste Church of Bourbourg
(France), and exhibited four figurative head sculptures at the National Portrait Gallery, London. In 2011, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
installed five works by Caro on their rooftop. Currently, at 87 years of age, Caro is working on an immense, multipart sculpture that will occupy three blocks of Midtown Park Avenue, to be installed in 2012.
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
, CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 8 March 1924 in New Malden
New Malden
New Malden is a town and shopping centre in the south-western London suburbs, mostly within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and partly in the London Borough of Merton, and is situated from Charing Cross...
, then in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
) is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using 'found' industrial objects.
Background and early life
Caro was educated at Charterhouse SchoolCharterhouse School
Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...
and Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
, earning a degree in engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
. In 1946, after time in the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, he studied sculpture at the Regent Street Polytechnic
University of Westminster
The University of Westminster is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom. Its origins go back to the foundation of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in 1838, and it was awarded university status in 1992.The university's headquarters and original campus are based on Regent...
before pursuing further studies at the Royal Academy Schools from 1947 until 1952.
Professional career
Anthony Caro found modernismModernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
when working as an assistant to Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
in the 1950s. After being introduced to the American sculptor David Smith
David Smith (sculptor)
David Roland Smith was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor and painter, best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures.-Biography:...
in the early 1960s, he abandoned his earlier figurative work and started constructing sculptures by welding or bolting together collections of prefabricated metal, such as I-beams, steel plates and meshes. Often the finished piece is then painted in a bold flat colour.
Caro found international success in the late 1950s and for a time was popular in the US. He was also influential as a tutor at St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. The school has an outstanding international reputation, and is considered one of the world's leading art and design institutions...
in London inspiring a younger generation of abstract British Sculptors led by former students and assistants like Phillip King, Tim Scott
Tim Scott (artist)
Tim Scott is a British sculptor known for his abstract sculptures made from transparent acrylic and steel. While studying architecture, Scott also studied sculpture part time at St. Martins School of Art...
, William G. Tucker
William G. Tucker
William G. Tucker is a modernist British sculptor and modern art scholar. He was born to English parents in Cairo, Egypt in 1935. In 1937, his family returned to England, where Tucker was raised. He attended the University of Oxford from 1955-1958...
, Peter Hide
Peter Hide
Peter Hide is an English born abstract sculptor. A one-time pupil of Sir Anthony Caro, Hide is best known for upright, large-scale welded sculptures made of heavy, rusted industrial scrap steel....
, and Richard Deacon; as well as a reaction group including Bruce McLean
Bruce McLean
Bruce McLean is a Scottish performance artist and painter.McLean was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1961 to 1963, and at St Martin's School of Art, London,from 1963 to 1966...
, Barry Flanagan
Barry Flanagan
Barry Flanagan RA OBE was a Welsh sculptor, best known for his bronze statues of hares.-Biography:Barry Flanagan was born in Prestatyn, North Wales. He studied at Birmingham College of Art and Crafts before going on to St. Martin's School of Art in London in 1964. Flanagan graduated in 1966 and...
, Richard Long
Richard Long (artist)
Richard Long is an English sculptor, photographer and painter, one of the best known British land artists. Long is the only artist to be shortlisted for the Turner Prize four times, and he is reputed to have refused the prize in 1984...
and Gilbert and George
Gilbert and George
Gilbert & George are two artists who work together as a collaborative duo. Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore have become famous for their distinctive, highly formal appearance and manner and their brightly coloured graphic-style photo-based artworks.-Early life:Gilbert Proesch was...
. He and several former students were asked to join the seminal 1966 show at the Jewish Museum
Jewish Museum (New York)
The Jewish Museum of New York, an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, is the leading Jewish museum in the United States. With over 26,000 objects, it contains the largest collection of art and Jewish culture outside of museums in Israel. The museum is housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in...
in New York entitled, Primary Structures
Primary Structures (1966 exhibition)
Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors was a minimalist art exhibit shown from April 27 - June 12, 1966 at the Jewish Museum in New York...
representing the British influence on the "New Art".
Caro taught at Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
from 1963 to 1965, along with painter Jules Olitski
Jules Olitski
Jules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
and sculptor David Smith
David Smith (sculptor)
David Roland Smith was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor and painter, best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures.-Biography:...
.
He is often credited with the significant innovation of removing the sculpture from its plinth, although Smith and Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
had both previously taken steps in the same direction. Caro's sculptures are usually self supporting and sit directly on the floor. In doing so they remove a barrier between the work and the viewer, who is invited to approach and interact with the sculpture from all sides.
In 1980, Caro was trying to organise an exhibition of British abstract art in South African townships when he met Robert Loder
Robert Loder
Robert Beauclerk Loder is an English businessman and art collector. He has been particularly concerned in developing Contemporary African Art....
. In 1981, when staying in New York State, the pair developed the idea of running workshops for professional artists which became the Triangle Arts Trust
Triangle Arts Trust
Triangle Arts Trust is an international arts organization that brings together artists from different countries to explore new ideas and expand the boundaries of their practice...
. They held the first Triangle workshop in 1982 for thirty sculptors and painters from USA, the United Kingdom and Canada at Pine Plains, New York.
In the 1980s, Caro's work changed direction by introducing more literal elements with a series of figures drawn from classical Greece
Classical Greece
Classical Greece was a 200 year period in Greek culture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC. This classical period had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and greatly influenced the foundation of Western civilizations. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, such as...
. Latterly he has also attempted large scale installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
pieces. One of these large pieces, Sea Music, stands on the quay at Poole in Dorset. To mark his 80th birthday, a retrospective exhibition was organized by the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
in 2005. He was knighted
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1987 and received the Order of Merit
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
in May 2000.
In 2008, Caro opened his "Chapel of Light" installation in the Saint Jean-Baptiste Church of Bourbourg
Bourbourg
Bourbourg is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is situated in the maritime plain of northern France, at the heart of a triangle formed by Dunkirk, Calais, and Saint-Omer.-Heraldry:-Historical sites:...
(France), and exhibited four figurative head sculptures at the National Portrait Gallery, London. In 2011, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
installed five works by Caro on their rooftop. Currently, at 87 years of age, Caro is working on an immense, multipart sculpture that will occupy three blocks of Midtown Park Avenue, to be installed in 2012.
Family
In 1949, Caro married the painter Sheila Girling and they have two sons Timothy (b. 1951) and Paul (b. 1958).Suggested reading
- Busch, Julia M., A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s (Philadelphia: The Art Alliance Press & London: Associated University Presses, 1974). ISBN 0-87982-007-1.
- Whelan, Richard, Anthony Caro (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1975). ISBN 0-525-47400-5.....
- Barker, Ian, Anthony Caro: Quest for the New Sculpture (Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2004) ISBN 978-0-85331-910-8.
- Reid, Mary, Anthony Caro: Drawing in Space (Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009) ISBN 978-1-84822-030-0.
- Wilkin, KarenKaren WilkinKaren Wilkin is a New York-based independent curator and art critic specializing in 20th century modernism. Educated at Barnard College and Columbia University, she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship, to Rome...
, Anthony Caro: Interior and Exterior (Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009) ISBN 978-1-84822-031-7. - Julius Bryant, Julius, Anthony Caro: Figurative and Narrative Sculpture (Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009) ISBN 978-1-84822-032-4.
- Westley Smith, H.F., Anthony Caro: Small Sculptures (Farnham, Lund Humphries, 2010) ISBN 978-1-84822-051-5.
- Moorhouse, Paul, Anthony Caro: Presence (Farnham, Lund Humphries, 2010) ISBN 978-1-84822-053-9.
External links
- Anthony Caro at Sculpture.org.uk
- Portfolio
- Sir Anthony Caro video at Web of Stories
- Exhibition at the Tate BritainTate BritainTate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
, 2005 - Leading sculptors mark school's 75th birthday, The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 2 June 2003 - Anthony Caro at Mitchell-Innes & Nash
- Caro's work in focus on Tate Online
- Sir Anthony Caro on his metal, The Independent, 2008