Ralph Brown (sculptor)

Ralph Brown RA (1928 – 2013) came to national prominence in the late 1950s with his large-scale bronze Meat Porters, commissioned for Harlow New Town, Essex and remains esteemed for his sensual, figurative sculptures.

Early career

Ralph Brown was born in Leeds, and is the younger contemporary of the eminent group of Yorkshire sculptors that include Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Kenneth Armitage. He studied at Leeds College of Art, where both Moore and Hepworth attended, and the Royal College of Art where he was taught by Frank Dobson, John Skeaping and Leon Underwood. He won a number of scholarships including a trip to Paris to work in the studio of Ossip Zadkine where he also saw work by Rodin and Germain Richier and met Giacometti. In 1957 he won the Boise Scholarship to Italy and studied Etruscan Sculpture. Brown also worked in Cannes making mosaics for Picasso where he was inspired by the work of Marino Marini and Giacomo Manzu.

Style and Technique

Like Henry Moore who befriended him and encouraged him by buying his work, Brown’s art is deeply rooted in the figurative tradition. However, whilst his predecessors focused their energies on carving and maintaining ‘truth to materials’, Brown concentrated on modelling allowing him to interact with his material on a more intimate level. In the introductory catalogue essay for Brown’s major retrospective show at Leeds City Art Gallery in 1988 Dennis Farr commented: “So much of Brown’s sculpture is his search for equivalents, in formal terms, for sensual experiences.”^[1]

Harlow New Town Commission

Brown came to national prominence in the late 1950s with his large-scale bronze group Meat Porters, commissioned for Harlow New Town, Essex. The piece is a tribute to physical labour with two figures hauling an ox carcass, a subject fitting to the busy market square and a form that brings dynamism to the otherwise rigid architecture. The concrete version of the piece won second prize for sculpture at the John Moore’s Exhibition, Liverpool in 1959.^[2]

Recognition

During the 1950s Brown’s work attracted much critical acclaim and was shown alongside his contemporaries Kenneth Armitage, William Turnbull and Eduardo Paolozzi. Brown was elected a Royal Academician in 1972 and his work can be found in many prestigious public collections including the Tate Collection, Arts Council of Great Britain, Leeds City Art Gallery and many other public collections in Britain and overseas. Brown had a major retrospective at Leeds City Art Gallery in 1988. Ralph Brown is represented by Pangolin London.^[3]

Public collections

• Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland

• Albright-Knox Collection, Buffalo, US.

• Arts Council of Great Britain.

• Cass Foundation, Sculpture at Goodwood, UK.^[4]

• Chantrey Bequest Collection, UK.

• City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, UK.

• Contemporary Art Society, London.

• Halifax Art Gallery, UK.

• Hepworth Wakefield Gallery, UK.

• Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK. Leeds City Galleries,UK.

• National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.

• Norfolk Contemporary Art Society, UK.

• Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Netherlands.

• Royal Academy of Arts, London.

• Royal College of Art, London.

• Salzburg State Museum, Austria.

• Southport Art Gallery, UK.

• Stuyvesant Foundation, South Africa.

• Tate Britain.^[5]

• University of Liverpool, UK.

• West Riding Education Committee, Yorkshire, UK.

Public Sculpture

• The Meat Porters, commissioned by Harlow Art Trust, sited in Market Square, Harlow Town Centre, 1961^[6]

• Market Place Fountain, Hatfield New Town, arranged through the Chairman of Digswell Arts Trust, now re-sited in front of the Sports Centre, 1962

• Liverpool University, Engineering Block. Relief purchased by Eugene Rosenberg with FRS Yorke and CS Mardall, 1966

• London, Manufacturers’ Hanover Bank, David Ichbald, designer, commissioned bronze wave forms as large wall relief, 1970

• The Patriarch, Jambo. Commissioned by Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust for Jersey Zoo as a memorial to the famous gorilla, 1995

• Meat Porters (1957–60) exhibited at Sculpture at Goodwood, West Sussex, 2000-2008

Exhibitions

2014, Crucible 2, Gloucester Cathedral^[7]

2014, Ralph Brown RA: A Memorial Exhibition, Pangolin London^[8]

2009, Ralph Brown at Eighty: The Early Decades Revisited, Pangolin London^[9]

2005, Number Nine Gallery, Birmingham

1999, Bruton Gallery, Leeds

1996, Alpha House Gallery, Sherborne, Dorset

1995, Napier Gallery, St Helier, Jersey

1988, Leeds City Art Gallery/Henry Moore Institute^[10]

1988, Mead Gallery, University of Warwick Arts Centre

1987, Eton Art Gallery, Windsor

1987, Beaux Arts Bath

1986, Solomon Gallery, London

1985, Long Island Gallery, New York

1984, Charles Foley Gallery, Columbus, Ohio

1983, Beaux Arts, Bath

1983, Puck Building, New York

1979, Browse and Darby, London

1976, Robert Welch Gallery, Chipping Campden

1976, Taranman Gallery, London

1975, Galerie H, Marseille

1974, Galerie Dortindeguey, Montpellier

1973, Gunther Franke, Munich drawings

1972, Archer Gallery, London

1972, Traklhaus Galerie, Salzburg Festival

1971, Form International, London

1964, Bangor University, Wales

1964, Forum Gallery, Bristol

1963, Leicester Galleries, London

1961, Leicester Galleries, London

Publications

• 'Ralph Brown: A Memorial Exhibition'^[11]

• 'Social, savage, sensual: the sculpture of Ralph Brown' by Gillian Whiteley, with Jon Wood, Rungwe Kingdon and John Le Carré.^[12]

• 'Ralph Brown at Eighty. Early Decades Revisited'.^[13]

• 'Ralph Brown, Sculpture.^[14]

• 'Ralph Brown. Sculpture and Drawings' by Dennis Farr.^[15]

External links

• Official website
• Ralph Brown at Pangolin London
• Obituary: The Independent, 30 April 2013
• Obituary: The Guardian 9 May 2013
• Obituary: The Times June 8 2013
• Obituary: The Yorkshire Post 20 April 2013
• Tangent Films: Ralph Brown