Geoffrey Clarke

Geoffrey Clarke (1924-)

Best known as a sculptor, Geoffrey Clarke exhibited with the group of ‘young’ British sculptors at the 1952 Venice Biennale: Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull. Through this group, which Herbert Read identified as ‘participating in a general revival of the art of sculpture,’ Clarke touched the circle of the British avant-garde in the early 1950s, gaining prominence and a considerable degree of fame for his work. Clarke’s prints were shown at three Venice Biennales.

In the early to mid-1950s Clarke used iron, stained glass, enamel and printmaking techniques to create linear images of Man. By the late 1950s he had adopted aluminium, his technique leading to the greatest number of public commissions (including several for the new Coventry Cathedral) of any post-war British sculptor.