WORK OF THE WEEK : William Turnbull, ‘Paddle Venus 3’, 1986

William Turnbull
Paddle Venus 3, 1986
Bronze
186 x 36.2 x 49.5 cm / 6ft 1 ¼ x 1ft 2 ¼ x 1ft ½ in.
Signed with artist’s stamp, numbered & dated ‘5/6 86’ on base, behind figure
Cast 5 from an edition of 6 plus 1 AP

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Left: Reg Butler, Study for Circus, 1959, Bronze, 51.4 x 19.1 x 17.5 cm
Cast 7 from an edition of 8

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Right: Katie Walker, Ribbon rocking chair, Designed 2006, Made 2018
Ash, brushed stainless steel and natural vegetable tanned saddle leather
86 x 79 x 113 cm / 2ft 9 ⅞ x 2ft 7 ⅛ x 3ft 8 ½ in.

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‘The sculpture that I have liked is sculpture that is very simple… not ornate. Early Greek sculpture, early Egyptian sculpture… different places where the shapes are fairly simple and the colouring is fairly simple.’

- Extract from William Turnbull: Beyond Time, 2010

As a student, William Turnbull (1922 - 2012) spent hours walking amongst the vast collections in the British Museum, between the Neolithic tools and carved figures. Here, he pondered the statues and forms - imagery that would grow to manifest in his sculptural output. Looking towards Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Cycladic culture, Turnbull's work explores the simplicity of form and the unique, often sacred, response to the human figure.

Paddle Venus 3 is a testament to Turnbull’s unwavering exploration of objects and forms that are both timeless and totemic. This elongated paddle has intricate, yet minimal, marks carved into its surface –both front and back – which invite the viewer to explore and contemplate the entire surface of the sculpture. Hinting at a reduction of the human form –aided by the delicate rise of the surface at the tip of the sculpture, reminiscent of a facial structure – the composition invokes contemplation from both up-close and further away. Turnbull himself describes these marks as ‘a symbolic way of taking your eyes around the sculpture’.

William Turnbull was born in Dundee in 1922. Before attending the Slade School of Fine Art, Turnbull was drafted as an RAF pilot, travelling internationally between 1941 until 1946. He held teaching positions at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1964 – 1972, which allowed him to work in new materials, such as steel, Perspex and fibreglass. In 1972, he was commissioned by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation to create a public sculpture for the City Sculpture Project in Liverpool. He had a major retrospective in 1973 at the Tate Gallery, and at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2005. Turnbull’s work is displayed in institutional collections around the world, including: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Tate, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran and Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen, Germany.