Kenneth Armitage, R.A. (1916-2002)

'In my bedroom I have had since the end of the Second World War a wooden farmhouse armchair which I like very much, and I made many drawings of it in the 1950s. In 1983 I made some sculptures: one big one, which is not at all like the chair, but before it the three small ones which were like it. The three small ones were made directly in wax; the big one was made in a rather complicated way. It was like a throne with a tall, curved back plate, a seat, forearms, lower legs and head, but no body, all welded together, 152 centimetres high in bronze. By this assembly method and separate modelling of head, arms and legs, it was possible to achieve greater detail than if it had been made in one piece. The cast was sold to the Brisbane Town Hall,Australia in 1989' (K. Armitage quoted in T. Woollcombe (ed.), op. cit., p. 126).