Lynn Chadwick

Monty Ritchie, Texas
Nina Bevins, Texas (by descent from the above)
Sale: Sotheby’s, London, 24th June 1999, lot 140
Guy Pieters Gallery, Knokke, Belgium (purchased at the above sale)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Battersea Park, London, Sculpture in the Open Air, 1960, no. 10, illustrated in the catalogue

Dennis Farr & Eva Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick, Sculptor: With a Complete Illustrated Catalogue  1947-2005, London, 2006, no. 324, illustrated p. 169
Lynn Chadwick, Out of the Shadows: Unseen Sculpture of the 1960s (exhibition catalogue), Gallery Pangolin, London, 2009, n.n., illustrated p. 22

Exuding an undeniable sense of power and presence, Black Beast is a striking example of Lynn Chadwick’s series of Beasts, which the sculptor commenced in 1955 and continued to develop throughout the following decade. The present example was executed in 1960, at a time when Chadwick had already become internationally renowned as one of the most significant sculptors of the twentieth century. 

Chadwick visited Greece in 1955, where he saw the celebrated Avenue of Lions at Delos. The sight of this row of ancient marble lions, standing as monumental guardians along the Sacred Way, reputedly acted as a source of inspiration for his own series of Beasts. Poised watchfully on its powerful legs, this iteration of the Beast appears to survey its surroundings with an alert and wary energy. Not directly representing any particular animal, Black Beast assumes a mythical dimension, becoming a universal signifier of the animal kingdom at its most primal and powerful.