The Geometry of Fear was an informal group or

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

of young British sculptors in the years after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The term was coined by

Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...

in 1952 in his description of the work of the eight British artists represented in the "New Aspects of British Sculpture" exhibition at the

Biennale di Venezia The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

of 1952.

Venice

The eight artists who exhibited "New Aspects of British Sculpture" in the British pavilion at the

of 1952 were Robert Adams,

Kenneth Armitage William Kenneth Armitage (18 July 1916 – 22 January 2002) was a British sculptor known for his semi-abstract bronzes. Life Armitage was born in Leeds on July 18, 1916, the youngest of three children studied at the Leeds College of Art and t ...

Reg Butler Reginald Cotterell Butler (28 April 1913 – 23 October 1981) was an English sculptor. He was born at Bridgefoot House, Buntingford, Hertfordshire to Frederick William Butler (1880–1937) and Edith (1880–1969), daughter of blacksm ...

Lynn Chadwick Lynn Russell Chadwick, (24 November 1914 – 25 April 2003) was an English sculptor and artist. Much of his work is semi-abstract sculpture in bronze or steel. His work is in the collections of MoMA in New York, the Tate in London and the ...

, Geoffrey Clarke,

Bernard Meadows Bernard Meadows (19 February 1915 - 12 January 2005) was a British modernist sculptor. Meadows was Henry Moore's first assistant; then part of the Geometry of Fear school, a loose-knit group of British sculptors whose prominence was establishe ...

Eduardo Paolozzi Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (, ; 7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005) was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art. Early years Eduardo Paolozzi was born on 7 March ...

and William Turnbull. All were under 40, with years of birth ranging from 1913 to 1924, and of a younger generation than established British sculptors such as Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. A large bronze by Moore, ''Double Standing Figure'', stood outside the British pavilion, and contrasted strongly with the works inside. Unlike the smoothly carved work of Hepworth and Moore, these were angular, jagged, rough-textured or spiky. They were more linear and open;

Philip Hendy Sir Philip Anstiss Hendy (27 September 1900 – 6 September 1980) was a British art curator who worked both in Britain and overseas, notably the United States. In 1923, he began his career in art administration as an Assistant Keeper and lectu ...

compared Butler's sculptures to three-dimensional drawings. Many of the sculptures in the pavilion were of human or animal figures, and several showed the influence of the continental sculptors

Germaine Richier Germaine Richier (16 September 1902 – 21 July 1959) was a French sculptor. Born in Grans, Richier began her studies at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Montpellier, in the atelier of Louis-Jacques Guigues; in 1926 she went to work with Antoine Bou ...

and Alberto Giacometti, works by whom had been shown at the

Anglo-French Art Centre The Anglo-French Art Centre (or Anglo-French Art School, previously the St John's Wood Art School, was an art school at 29 Elm Tree Road in St John's Wood, north London, England. The centre was founded in 1946 by Alfred Rozelaar Green, who studie ...

in London in 1947. The British sculptures were seen as reflecting the angst, the anxieties and the guilt of the immediate post-War period, with the recent memory of the War, the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

and Hiroshima, and the fear of nuclear proliferation and the effects of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. In his catalogue description,

wrote: Read's quotation "scuttling across the floors of silent seas" is from ''

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", commonly known as "Prufrock", is the first professionally published poem by American-born British poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). Eliot began writing "Prufrock" in February 1910, and it was first publishe ...

'' by

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...

and is a reference to ''Crab'', a sculpture by Bernard Meadows in the exhibition. Read's words were widely quoted, and despite the differences in style and technique between the eight artists, they came to be known as the Geometry of Fear group.

Reception

The Geometry of Fear exhibition was well received, both within and outside Britain.

Alfred Barr Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981) was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of ...

, the former director of the New York

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, spoke highly of the sculptors and bought work by three of them – Robert Adams, Reg Butler and Lynn Chadwick – for the museum; he described the exhibition as "the most distinguished national showing of the Biennale". All eight sculptors achieved rapid recognition and career success in the 1950s. In 1953 Butler won the international competition to design the monument to the ''Unknown Political Prisoner'', chosen over more than two thousand entries including submissions by

Naum Gabo Naum Gabo, born Naum Neemia Pevsner (23 August 1977) (Hebrew: נחום נחמיה פבזנר), was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's post-Revolution avant-garde and the subsequent development of twentieth-century scul ...

and Barbara Hepworth; the prize was £4500, enough at the time to buy a large house. In 1956 Lynn Chadwick won the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Biennale di Venezia of that year, selected over César, Giacometti and Richier. Within a decade the Geometry of Fear group had fallen from view. In the 1960s British sculpture was dominated by the abstract, particularly that associated with

Anthony Caro Sir Anthony Alfred Caro (8 March 192423 October 2013) was an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using ' found' industrial objects. His style was of the modernist school, having worked with Henry Moor ...

and his circle at

Saint Martin's School of Art Saint Martin's School of Art was an 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 became part of ...

. Figurative expressionism and post-war angst were out of style. Butler's eighteen-metre ''Unknown Political Prisoner'' was never executed; he, like Adams, Clarke and Meadows, essentially disappeared. Chadwick and Armitage were neglected in Britain but had some following in other countries, while Paolozzi and Turnbull began to work in different styles and remained in the public eye.

Other artists

While the Geometry of Fear group initially consisted only of the eight sculptors who exhibited in Venice in 1952, and never had any of the characteristics of an

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defi ...

, other artists have been associated with it, or thought to have been influenced by it. These include, among others, the sculptors

Ralph Brown Ralph William John Brown (born 18 June 1957) is an English actor and writer, known for playing Danny the drug dealer in ''Withnail and I'', the security guard Aaron (a.k.a. "85") in ''Alien 3'', DJ Bob Silver in ''The Boat That Rocked'' aka ' ...

, Anthony Caro (in his early work), Robert Clatworthy,

Hubert Dalwood Hubert Cyril Dalwood (2 June 1924 – 2 November 1976) was a British sculptor. He was widely known as 'Nibs'. Life Dalwood was born on 2 June 1924 at 78 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol. He was apprenticed to the Bristol Aeroplane Company ...

Elisabeth Frink Dame Elisabeth Jean Frink (14 November 1930 – 18 April 1993) was an English sculptor and printmaker. Her ''Times'' obituary noted the three essential themes in her work as "the nature of Man; the 'horseness' of horses; and the divine in ...

George Fullard George Fullard (15 September 1923 – 25 December 1973) was an English sculptor. Born in Sheffield on 15 September 1923 Fullard served with the 17th/21st Lancers during World War II and was severely wounded at the Battle of Cassino. He studied ...

John Hoskin John Hoskin (1921–1990) was a British sculptor from Cheltenham. He began drawing when he returned from Germany after serving in the Second World War. Terry Frost, a painter from the St. Ives school encouraged him to become a sculptor. John wh ...

and Leslie Thornton, and the painter

John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...

. The post-War paintings of

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

and

Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking ...

share some of the

Atomic Age The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The Gadget at the ''Trinity'' test in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, during World War II. Although nuclear chain reaction ...

anxieties of the Geometry of Fear sculptors.

Venice

Reception

Other artists

References

Further reading