George Kennethson

The Estate of the Artist
Wilson Stephens Fine Art, London, where acquired by the present owner, 17th November 2004

London, Wilson Stephens Fine Art, George Kennethson, A Modernist Rediscovered, 3rd - 27th November 2004, cat. no.8, illustrated.

Simon Hucker, George Kennethson, A Modernist Rediscovered, Merrell, London, 2004, cat. no.5, pp.36-7, illustrated.

Structurally sound. There are some very tiny, minor nips to the extreme edge, which are most probably in keeping with the Artist's original carving. There is a single, tiny possible small bruise to the circular element on the side. This excepting the work appears in excellent overall condition. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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George Kennethson's artistic vision was forged in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when artists, sculptors in particular’ still saw the 'primitive' as a viable way to be 'modern', as if the art of ancient or non-western cultures, unaffected by centuries of Academic naturalism, remained closer to a universal ‘truth’, one that could be uncovered through direct carving in wood and stone, letting the material guide the sculptor into discovering form.
 
What gives Kennethson's work its integrity and its power is that he held on to this vision long after the ideas behind ‘modernist primitivism’ went out of fashion, as the modern made way for the post-modern in the late 50s. For Kennethson carving in stone, was not something to be abandoned, but instead to be pursued, his relationship with his material – Hopton Wood stone, Clipsham, Brown Hornton, Cumbrian limestone, Purbeck Marble, and some of the last alabaster to be quarried in England – was a constant and unending source of inspiration and dialogue. He worked, almost without exception, with blocks of a domestic size, to keep the work precise, his engagement constant in all directions. As the artist wrote:  ‘You must... feel the surface, the angular items and subtleties [of the stone]… removing from a given block of material of a certain size & proportion sufficient of it to produce a fully three-dimensional harmony of rhythms without destroying too much of the material or wasting it’ (quoted in Richard Cork, The Sculpture of George Kennethson, London, Redfern Gallery, exhibition catalogue,  pp. 3 and 11)

Whilst it is easy to see the influence of Moore and Hepworth in Kennethson's sculpture, his work is less concerned with 'universal form', focusing instead on the vernacular as an alternative means of conveying the common thread of human experience, across boundaries of geography and time. In this sense, then, his work is closer to that of Eric Gill and, in some ways, Stanley Spencer. It is the flat caps, heads scarves, upturned collars and pockets – all cut with a quiet formal beauty ­– that elevate his sculpture, towards a unique statement. Archetypes are found in the everyday, in the people of Uffington, where Kennethson spent the War, and the townsfolk of Oundle, where he lived and taught for the last four decades of his life. The man with a mattress, on his way to the blacksmith’s forge, carries a burden both real and metaphorical. The traveller, well-equipped for his journey, is as if a passer-by on top of an English chalk down, yet also symbolises the eternal wandering that has defined our existence since earliest times and is still ­– through war and famine – of the modern condition.

Until recently, Kennethson's work has been too little-known, outside those familiar with Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, the house-museum of former Tate curator Jim Ede, who placed his two alabaster pieces in the same space as his Brancusi and Gaudier-Brzeskas. However, two recent showings in London, including a recent retrospective, have created new interest in his work and to no surprise: stone carving of this quality and integrity is rare indeed.