Garth Evans (born 1934) is a British sculptor and former college lecturer at

St Martin's School of Art Saint Martin's School of Art was an art school, art college in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1854, initially under the aegis of the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Saint Martin's beca ...

, London.

Background

Evans' mother was from

Pencoed Pencoed ( cy, Pen-coed) is a urbanised community and town in the county borough of Bridgend, Wales. It straddles the M4 motorway north east of Bridgend and is situated on the Ewenny River. At the 2011 census it had a population of around 9,166. ...

, her father and brothers were South Wales coalminers. He was born in

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

in 1934 and studied at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London.

Career

Evans exhibited widely in the 1960s and 1970s including in the group exhibitions ''British Sculpture '72'' at the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

(1972) and ''The Condition of Sculpture'' at the

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Roy ...

(1975). He had a survey exhibition of his work at the

Yorkshire Sculpture Park The Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) is an art gallery, with both open-air and indoor exhibition spaces, in West Bretton, Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, England. It shows work by British and international artists, including Henry Moore and Barbar ...

in 2013. Evans describes his sculptures as figurative. His works were known for their size and grand statements, though they became smaller and less dramatic from the late-1970s onwards. He has been recipient of a number of awards including the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and the

Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expression ...

Award.

Notable works

Evans created some site-specific sculptures in South Wales in the early 1970s. These included a 40-foot-long unnamed sculpture in coal-black steel, which was installed on

The Hayes The Hayes ( cy, Yr Ais) is a commercial area in the southern city centre of the Welsh capital, Cardiff. Centred on the road of that name leading south towards the east end of the city centre, the area is mostly pedestrianised and is the location ...

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

, in early May 1972. It was inspired by Evans' family stories about the South Wales coalmining (and steel) industry. The sculpture was commissioned by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation for their City Sculpture Project and intended to remain on site for six months. It subsequently moved to Leicestershire where it was put into storage, after being repainted green. In September 2019 it was returned to Cardiff by

Chapter Arts Centre Chapter Arts Centre (often just referred to as Chapter) is an arts centre in Canton, Cardiff, Wales, opened in 1971. Description Chapter hosts films, plays, performance art and live music, and includes a free art gallery, café and bars. There ...

, restored and repainted after a £16,000

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

campaign, then reinstalled close to its original location in The Hayes. A short documentary film was due to be created, based on people's memories of the sculpture. A number of Evans' works are in the permanent collection of the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Galleries. ''White Relief No.14'' is in the collection of

Rugby Art Gallery and Museum The Rugby Art Gallery and Museum is a combined art gallery and museum in central Rugby, Warwickshire, in England. The purpose-built building housing it is shared with Rugby library; it was opened in 2000 and was built in the place of Rugby's previ ...

References

External links

Garthevans.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Garth 1934 births Living people Academics of Saint Martin's School of Art British sculptors