The work was created in 1966 after Meadmore developed a sculpture titled Bent Column, now exhibited by the Newport Harbor Art Museum in Newport Beach, California. A contact sheet of twelve black-and-white images, part of the Estate of Clement Meadmore's collection, illustrates five different sculptures produced as he explored new ideas following Bent Column. The fourth row shows the present piece, a C-shaped sculpture with both loops straightened and twisted at ninety degrees to the broad front. The work's simple, pared-back nature, occupying a square-section volume, encourages viewers to explore the relationship between mass and space created by the single geometric form. Meadmore remarked, “It is important to me that the entire form of a sculpture can be deduced from any single angle; otherwise, one is only seeing half a sculpture at any given moment.”

Typical of Meadmore’s work, this monumental sculpture consists of a single rectangular volume that repeatedly twists and turns upon itself before extending into space, “as if in a mood of aspiration or exhilaration, or simply to release physical forces held in tension”, explains Head of Sale, Francesca Whitham. She continues: “Meadmore’s works have always fused elements of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. Since Meadmore’s sculptures are often large, this impression of effortless physical grace is simultaneously underscored and called into question through the fluid signature like immediacy of their physicality.”

Meadmore was one of the first sculptors to use Cor-Ten steel, he admired the natural, rusted patina of this steel and it later became his preferred medium. Cor-Ten steel gives the impression of an industrial beam, no longer in use and left to rot as the rusted patina forms which can be seen in this work.

“This monumental sculpture is a feat of engineering which encompasses Meadmore’s exploration of materials and boundaries of space. It is rare to have such an early and important work enter onto the open market, but especially one with such rock ‘n’ roll provenance. The sculpture has certainly travelled the world since 1966 and I am looking forward to seeing where its onward journey takes it.” - Head of Sale, Francesca Whitham.

Clement Meadmore, 1929-2005

Clement Meadmore, born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in 1929, developed an early passion for art, influenced by his uncle, Jesse Jewhurst Hilder (1881-1916), an Australian watercolourist inspired by the French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875). Meadmore's mother also introduced him to ballet and the works of Edgar Degas (1834-1917), sparking his interest in the dynamic forms and tension created by bodily movement. Initially, Meadmore studied aeronautical engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, graduating in 1949. He then designed furniture until 1953, the same year he created his first sculpture from welded steel. This piece received positive acclaim, leading to exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. In the 1950s, Meadmore's work featured interlocking vertical and horizontal rods forming textured, jagged grids with a tactile quality. He moved to New York in 1963, where he gained fame for his monumental sculptures that explored modernist themes. Clement Meadmore passed away in New York in 2005.

Meadmore’s works are featured in the collections of major museums in Australia, as well as internationally renowned institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Portland Art Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. His monumental sculptures are installed at prominent universities across the United States, and he has had solo exhibitions both in the US and Japan.

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Auction Details

Thursday 11 July, 10.30am BST
Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE

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