Woman Resting

Artist Reg Butler (Buntingford, England, 1913 - 1981)

Date1951

Mediumwrought iron

ClassificationsSculptures

DimensionsOverall: Height: 57 cm, Width: 170 cm, Depth: 60 cm
Plinth Size: Height: 41 cm, Width: 199 cm, Depth: 77 cm

AcquisitionPresented in 1952 by the Festival of Britain Committee.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG004596

Keywords

Female

About MeReg Butler's welded steel 'Woman Resting' is a representation of the human anatomy, conceived not in terms of mass but as an arrangement of linear elements. Open sculptures of this type, constructed from iron or steel rods, were first developed in the 1930's by Gonzalez and Picasso. Butler became the leading exponent of this style in England in the early 1950s. His lack of formal art school training was offset by experience as an architect, and training with a blacksmith.

Butler's open sculptures have frequently been described as 'line drawings in space'. Like the strokes of a pencil on a piece of paper the rods give delineation to the contours of the figure, whilst the spaces between suggest the volume of the forms. The rods which form the sculpture would first have been subjected to heat so that they could be shaped more easily and then welded together using an oxy-acetylene flame. The roughness and corrosion of the metal and the bumps and pock-marks caused by sparking during the process of welding interact to produce a feeling of ageing or weathering.

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Butler, grandson of a blacksmith, was a leading British exponent of open sculptures, where shapes are conceived not in terms of mass, but as arrangements of linear elements.