Social, Savage, Sensual: The Sculpture of Ralph Brown

This book presents a critical overview of the work of Ralph Brown, a British artist much admired by Henry Moore,who has worked within the tradition of figurative sculpture for over sixty years. It explores Brown’s connections to historical and contemporary sculpture, taking in humanist and ‘social realist’ themes of the 1950s, his exploration of movement through space at the turn of the decade, his extensive exploration of the relief sculpture and, finally, the sensual and sexualised body from the 1960s onwards.

Alongside extensive illustrative documentation and photographs, a range of sculpture scholars and other key commentators provide a reassessment of Brown’s work: Gillian Whiteley presents an overview of Brown’s sculpture, Jon Wood focuses on an important early period spent in Paris, John le Carré comments from the collector’s perspective and Rungwe Kingdon offers an insight into the world of casting the artist’s work.

Published to coincide with a series of major exhibitions of his work, biographical information, extracts from important articles and essays and inventories of exhibitions, public commissions and collections complete the study, providing a wealth of material for further scholarly research.