Lynn Russell Chadwick
(1914 - 2003)

Lynn Chadwick Biography
(1914 - 2003)

Lynn Russell Chadwick was a 20th century British artist, highly renowned for his skeletal iron and bronze sculpture, often of abstracted animal and humanlike forms. He originally trained as an architectural draftsman, which was the only formal education Chadwick ever received as an artist. He recalled: "What it taught me was how to compose things, a formal exercise in composition, really, it has nothing to do with the building it represents".

In April 1941, Chadwick volunteered to serve in the Fleet Air Arm, and in 1941–1944 he served as a pilot during the Second World War escorting Atlantic convoys. After the war, Chadwick returned to England, working for Rodney Thomas, who helped him find his beginnings as a sculptor. He became involved in the design of exhibition stands and textile design, and in 1947, with the encouragement of Thomas, constructed his first mobile.

After studying welding in the early 1950s, however, Chadwick turned to stable metal constructions. He became known for his improvisational technique of welding metal without sketches or plans, designing as he manipulated his material. He represented Great Britain at the 1952 Venice Biennale. He won the International Sculpture Prize at the 1956 Biennale, which brought him worldwide acclaim. By the late 1950s Chadwick began to cast works in bronze. He experimented with many styles and subjects throughout the 1970s and 70s, from abstract sculpture to figural works, followed by monumental stainless steel sculptures known as ‘Beasts’. Following a highly successful career, the artist was appointed a Senior Royal Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2001. Chadwick died at Lypiatt Park in 2003, the same year in which he was given a major retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain.

Literature Source: Levine, P, Chadwick: The Artist and his Work. Spruyt, Van Mantgem & De Does BV/Leiden, The Netherlands, 1988 page 55