William Turnbull (b. 1922)

Patrick Elliott comments, 'One of his [Turnbull's] very first sculptures, Horse, made at the Slade in 1946, is remarkably prophetic of work the artist would make forty years later. At the time Paolozzi was making sculptures in cement - a very unusual method which contrasted with the traditional approach of modelling in clay favoured at the Slade - and Turnbull adopted a similarly direct method, modelling with wet plaster on a metal armature. The Horse was made by this method; originally it bore fine, engraved marks over the surface and was painted yellow. On the other hand this work owes something to Cubism with its interlocking flat planes that could almost be disassembled, and on the other it shows the clarity and lucidity of form that would characterise Turnbull's entire oeuvre' (see exhibition catalogue, William Turnbull: Sculpture and Paintings, London, Serpentine Gallery, 1995, pp. 13-4).