William Turnbull

Waddington Galleries, London, where acquired by the previous owner in June 2005

Gifted by the above to the present owner in September 2007

London, Tate Gallery, William Turnbull, 15 August - 7 October 1973, no. 15, illustrated in the exh. cat. p. 28 (another cast)

London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull, 28 October – 21 November 1987, no. 3, illustrated in the exh. cat. p. 17 (another cast)

Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Scottish Art Since 1900, 17 June – 24 September 1989, no. 334, illustrated in the exh. cat. p. 79 (another cast)

London, Serpentine Gallery, William Turnbull: Bronze Idols and Untitled Paintings, 15 November 1995 - 7 January 1996, pl. 6, illustrated in the exh. cat. p. 17 (another cast)

London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull: Horses – Development of a Theme, Other Sculptures and Paintings, 22 June – 20 July 2001, no. 3, illustrated in the exh. cat. p. 49 (another cast)

London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull, 2004, illustrated in the exh. cat. p. 11 (another cast)

London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull Paintings 1959 – 1963, Bronze Sculpture 1954 – 1958, 24 November – 22 December 2004, no. 14, illustrated in the exh. cat. (another cast)

West Bretton, Wakefield, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, William Turnbull Retrospective 1946 – 2003, 14 May – 9 October 2005, p. 5 (another cast)

London, Waddington Galleries, William Turnbull: Beyond Time, 9 June - 3 July 2010, no. 9, illustrated in the exh. cat. p. 33 (another cast)

London, Offer Waterman, William Turnbull: New Worlds, Words, Signs, 29 September – 3 November 2017, illustrated in the exh. cat. p. 25 (another cast)

London, Offer Waterman at No.9 Cork Street, William Turnbull: Centenary Retrospective, 29 June – 20 July 2022, no. 52, illustrated in the exh. cat. pp. 184, 185 (another cast)

Richard Morphet (intro.), The Alistair McAlpine Gift, Tate Gallery, London, 1971, p. 106 (another cast)

Patrick Elliott, ‘William Turnbull: A Consistent Way of Thinking’, in William Turnbull: Sculpture and Paintings, David Sylvester (intro.), Merrell Holberton in association with Serpentine Gallery, London, 1995, pl. 6, illustrated. p. 17 (another cast)

Amanda A. Davison, The Sculpture of William Turnbull, The Henry Moore Foundation with Lund Humphries, Hertfordshire & Hampshire, 2005, no. 37, illustrated pp. 29, 88 (another cast)

Jon Wood (ed.), William Turnbull: International Modern Artist, Lund Humphries, London, 2022, illustrated p. 91 (another cast)

During William Turnbull’s years at the Slade School of Replica Handbags , he made frequent visits to the British Museum, the appeal of which far eclipsed the galleries that also lay on his doorstep. Drawn to the sacred quality of the ancient forms, he was captivated by this dialogue between material form and space. In 1946 whilst still a student at the Slade, he created his second recorded sculpture Horse which revealed the emerging themes that would later be fully realised in Pegasus. Indicative of his lifelong engagement with primordial forms, the significance of process in the present work situates the sculpture within an understanding of creation as a ritual act.

Pegasus projects outwards from a central spine, transforming the mythical creature into an abstracted exploration. A ‘drawing in space’, its elongated forms create a sense of suspension whilst  its angularity evokes dynamic movement and rhythm. (Derbyshire, Chatsworth House, Willian Turnbull at Chatsworth, 2013, p.8)

His period in Paris during the late 1940s was to be equally formative, particularly his burgeoning friendship with Alberto Giaccometti, whose sculptural evocation of presence rather than literal representation was formative for him. This coincided with an epochal shift as society was engulfed by turmoil and, as his contemporary  Antony Gormley described it,  transformed into a  ‘utilitarian desert’ - a condition that Turnbull sought to make sense of through his art. (London, Offer Waterman, William Turnball, New Worlds Words, Signs, 2017, p.25) 

Turnbull worked with spontaneity and immediacy, pressing corrugated paper into the wet plaster model, the surface determined through chance, rendering the construction rough and tactile by result. Richard Morphet muses that Turnbull, as an existentialist, was drawn to this sense of ‘making something out of almost nothing, just powder.’  Pegasus is a metaphysical encounter wherein the inherent qualities of the materials convey their meanings. (Derbyshire, Chatsworth House, Willian Turnbull at Chatsworth, 2013, p.8)

‘Looking at William Turnbull’s sculptures is to see a long unbroken lineage of form, balance and material’, and the present work is certainly no exception. (London, Replica Shoes ’s, William Turnbull, 2017 np.)