§ BRIAN WALL (BRITISH/AMERICAN 1931-) UNTITLED, CIRCA

§ BRIAN WALL (BRITISH/AMERICAN 1931-) UNTITLED, CIRCA 1959 iron and black paint (72cm x 53cm x 56cm (28.3in x 20.9in x 22in)) Provenance: In Barns-Graham's notes about her collection, she states she purchased one 'iron sculpture' by Brian Wall and was given another. Footnote: Note: Brian Wall came to St Ives as a young artist in the 1950s and was, for a time, Secretary of the Penwith Society. His early work was heavily influenced by Mondrian, but he evolved away from this aesthetic whilst working as a welder in Hepworth’s studio. It is from this transitional period that these works date, Barns-Graham having acquired them in the late 1950s. Sparce, almost industrial and austerely Post-War in aesthetic, and reflective somehow of the ruggedness of the Cornish landscape, they were very avant-garde by the standards of the time. Wall welded his metal forms in an intuitive manner, simultaneously beginning to divorce his sculptures away from human or naturally rooted formalities. Though obvious parallels with the work of Anthony Caro can be drawn, it should be noted Caro adopted the techniques of welding metal several years after Wall, and Wall was widely perceived by critics of the time to be under-sung. After working in the thick of swinging Sixties London for a time, Wall went to the San Francisco Bay area of America where he continued to base himself for over thirty years. He was a faculty member at the Central School of Art in London, and a professor of art at the University of California, Berkeley. These works were in Barns-Graham garden at Balmungo, Scotland (hence the weathering).