Leon Underwood

The Leicester Galleries, London, where acquired by Wilfrid A. Evill for £30.0.0, by whom bequeathed to Honor Frost in 1963

London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Catalogue of Part of a Collection of Oil Paintings, Water Colours, Drawings and Sculpture Belonging to W. A. Evill, Esq., December 1947 - February 1948, cat. no.90 (as Female Torso);
London, The Tate Gallery, Contemporary Art Society, The Private Collector, 23rd March - 23rd April 1950, cat. no.338 (as Female Torso);
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Pictures, Drawings, Water Colours and Sculpture, April - May 1961, (part I- section I) cat. no.20;
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, June- August 1965, cat. no.272.

Ben Whitworth, The Sculpture of Leon Underwood, Aldershot, Lund Humphries, 2000, cat. no.31, p.39, illustrated p.124 (as Female Torso).

The following condition report has been prepared by Plowden & Smith Limited, 190 St Ann's Hill, London, SW18 2RT: The piece is structurally stable with no breaks or cracks in the figure. The front left corner of the integrally carved base has been broken and repaired in two places. These repairs are stable but discoloured. The piece is very dirty overall. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

While Ben Whitworth dates the present work to the late 1920s in his monograph on the artist, following further correspondence he feels the dating of 1937 is more likely, based on both the style and the inscription. Further, Evill's stock book gives the date of acquisition for the present work as 1932, but as with Negro Rhythm (lot 3), the earliest sculpture purchases listed therein appear to have been added retrospectively and presumably from memory and thus may account for the discrepancy.

The method of direct carving was largely ignored by avant garde artists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Western art. At the beginning of the twentieth century sculptors such as Constantin Brancusi, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Ivan Mestrovic looked to the carvings of ancient non-Western cultures to develop a new sculptural language with a focus on truth to materials. The impact of this exciting new direction for sculpture certainly took hold in Britain where all three of these artists exhibited work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1915.

Underwood was among a group of artists in Britain in the early twentieth century including Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore who looked to the 'primitive' art of Africa, Oceania and Egypt accessible at the British Museum to inspire their own direct carving into stone and wood. Underwood's earliest carvings were probably into pebbles he collected in 1919 and 1920 on beach holidays. In 1934 he had his first solo show at the Leicester Galleries where he was described in the exhibition catalogue by R.H. Wilenski as 'a living force in contemporary English art.' (R.H. Wilenski, Leon Underwood, exh. cat., 1934, p.6).

Sungirl conveys Underwood's instinct for and connection with his material. The Roman stone has a natural colouring as if it has been lit up and warmed by the sun. The figure rolls her head back towards the warmth, absorbing its rays. Underwood has carved infrequent lines into the surface to emphasise the curving, upward pulsing energy of the stone.

We are grateful to Ben Whitworth for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.