Gerald Laing (1936-2011)

"In 1973 I had an epiphany while looking at Charles Sargeant Jagger's great First World War Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner. Its powerful, narrative and humanistic content made me realise that in order to produce more significant work I required an infinite vocabulary of forms which the limitations of sheet metal did not allow.
As a result of this experience I changed my entire method of working. I modelled my sculpture in clay and learned how to cast it into bronze. Galina I was the first in this new body of work...This period of my work represents a search for a figurative language. The Galina Series was made concurrently with various other sculpture, such as Reclining Figure, Woman with Long Hair and Torso. They were all figurative sources which I developed towards a greater or lesser degree of formal abstraction."

(see www.geraldlaing.com)