Leon Underwood

Acquired from the Artist by Wilfrid A. Evill for £60.0.0, by whom bequeathed to Honor Frost in 1963

London, St George's Gallery, Leon Underwood, April 1945, cat. no.48;
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Part of a Collection of Oil Paintings, Water Colours, Drawings and Sculpture, December 1947 - February 1948, cat. no.95;
London, Beaux Arts Gallery, Leon Underwood, 11th May - 24th June 1953, cat. no.4;
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Pictures, Drawings, Water Colours and Sculpture, April - May 1961, (part III- section 3) cat. no.20;
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, June - August 1965, cat. no.276 (as Negro Dancer);
Colchester, The Minories, Leon Underwood: A Retrospective Exhibition, 9th August - 10th September 1969, cat. no.18.

Christopher Neve, Leon Underwood,  Thames and Hudson, London, 1974, p.199, illustrated p.151, pl.106;
Ben Whitworth, The Sculpture of Leon Underwood, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2000, cat. no.90, pp. 39, 63, illustrated p.13.

The following condition report has been prepared by Plowden & Smith Limited, 190 St Ann's Hill, London, SW18 2RT: The piece is in excellent condition 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."

In Evill's stock book the suggested purchase date for the present work is listed as 1930. However, the earliest sculpture purchases listed therein appear to have been added retrospectively and presumably from memory and thus may account for the discrepancy between this date and the execution date given by Whitworth. In a letter of 1965 Ida Hughes Stanton recalls going with Evill to various exhibitions circa 1930, and she recalls his already having sculpture by Underwood at this date, although she does not specify which.

Whilst at the Slade, and later in his own teaching, Underwood would ask life models to change position frequently so that he and his students could learn to represent the body in movement (Ben Whitworth, The Sculpture of Leon Underwood, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2000, p.14). In the 1930s, this desire for dynamism saw Underwood turn from carving to casting to represent movement in his sculpture. In the introduction to the exhibition, Sculpture Considered Apart from Time and Place at the Sydney Burney Gallery in 1932, Underwood explained the mastery of cast metal over stone: 'A piece of laminated limestone, carved with a motive in the round, must express the rhythm of that motive by a static disposition of its masses; but the nature of metal – a fluid in the veins of the earth – demands a more dynamic disposition in space' (pp. 5-6).

Armed with the materials, Underwood looked to the 'primitive' art of non-Western cultures for inspiration. He saw a visual language, specifically in the sculpture of West Africa, which he could use to convey dynamism and fluidity in his own sculpture. R.H. Wilenski, a great supporter of Underwood's work, expressed the possibilities of these influences when he wrote in 1932 'the negro sculptors often thought of, or sensed, the form of their statues as form revolving round a central axis' (The Meaning of Modern Sculpture, London, 1932, p.139).

The image of revolving movement is integral to Negro Rhythm: Harlem, NY. The dancer throws out his right leg to propel a pulse of swirling movement up through his chest and neck where he flings his head back.  

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