Artist of the Day, July 21, 2021: Sir Anthony Caro, an English abstract sculptor (#1335)

 Sir Anthony Alfred Caro OM CBE (1924 –2013) was an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterized by assemblages of metal using 'found' industrial objects.His style was of the modernist school, having worked with Henry Moore early in his career. He was lauded as the greatest British sculptor of his generation.

Caro was born in New Malden, England to a Jewish family and was the youngest of three children. When Caro was three, his father moved the family to a farm in Churt, Surrey. Caro was educated at Charterhouse School where his housemaster introduced him to Charles Wheeler. In the holidays he studied at the Farnham School of Art (now the University for the Creative Arts) worked in Wheeler's studio. He later earned a degree in engineering at Christ's College, Cambridge. 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.

Anthony Caro encountered modernism 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 pieces of steel such as I-beams, steel plates and meshes. Twenty Four Hours (1960), in Tate Britain since 1975, is one of his earliest abstract sculptures in painted steel. Often the finished piece was then painted in a bold flat colour.

Caro found international success in the late 1950s. He is often credited with the significant innovation of removing the sculpture from its plinth, although Smith and Brâncuși 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 1982 Caro was trying to organize 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 the US, the UK and Canada at Pine Plains, New York.

In the 1980s Caro's work changed direction with the introduction of more literal elements, with a series of figures drawn from classical Greece. After visiting Greece in 1985, and closely studying classical friezes, he embarked on a series of large-scale narrative works, including After Olympia, a panorama more than 23 metres (75 ft) long, inspired by the temple to Zeus at Olympia. Latterly he has attempted large scale installation pieces, one of which, Sea Music, stands on the quay at Poole, Dorset.

Caro was also a tutor at Saint Martin's School of Art in London, inspiring a younger generation of British abstract sculptors, led by former students and assistants including 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, Jan Dibbets, David Hall and Gilbert & 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".[5] Caro taught at Bennington College from 1963 to 1965, along with painter Jules Olitski and sculptor David Smith.

Caro also collaborated with celebrated architects, notably Frank Gehry, with whom he constructed a wooden village New York in 1987. With Norman Foster and the engineer Chris Wise, he designed the London Millennium Footbridge spanning the Thames between St. Paul's Cathedral and the Tate Modern.

Since the 1950s, Caro's work has been shown museums and galleries worldwide.

His first solo exhibition was  in Milan in 1956, and his first solo show in London was at the Gimpel Fils Gallery the next year. Another solo show was at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1963. In 1967 Caro began exhibiting regularly with Kasmin in London, and in 1969, he began showing with André Emmerich in New York. In the same year he showed at the São Paulo Biennale with John Hoyland. In 2004, to honour his 80th birthday, Tate Britain and other galleries held exhibitions of his work.

From 1 June to 27 October 2013 in connection with the 55th Venice Biennale, he exhibited at the Museo Correr, Venice, Italy. The exhibit was on at the time of his death.

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Sir Anthony Caro

1955, Woman Waking Up

1956, Figure

1959,  Déjeuner sur l’herbe II 

1960, Midday

1960, Twenty Four Hours

1961, Sculpture Seven

1962, Early One Morning

1962, Hopscotch

1962, Sculpture Two

1963, Pompadour

1964, Wide

1965, Frognal

1965, Slow Movement

1965, Yellow Swing

1966-67, The Window

1967, Table Piece XXVIII

1969, Piece LXXXII

1969, Table Piece LXXV

1969-70, Table Piece LXXXVIII (The Deluge)

1969-79, Sun Feast

1970, Garland

1974, Black Cover Flat

1975, Monsoon Drift

1975, Tundra

1977, Emma Dipper

1983, The Soldier’s Tate

1983-84, Child's Tower Room

1986, After Olympia

1987-90, Night Movements

1993, #11 Dusty

1993, #15 Point

1996, Dream City

1996, Goodwood Steps

2005, South Passage

2006, Magnolia Passage

2008, Pendant BB-8

2011-12, River Song