Page 42 - Studio International - September 1965

Peter Startup multiple image sculpture

by Charles S. Spencer

Startup is 43 years old. the same generation as
Turnbull and Paolozzi, who were fellow students at
the Slade. Even taking into consideration that he
originally studied painting, turning full-time to sculpture
in 1955, he must be considered a slow-starter. This is
inherent in his personality. He is a reserved, hesitant
man. not given to easy definitions; one of those artists
whose very creativity is the outcome of a reluctance to
analyse. He lives quietly with his wife and family in
Holland Park, teaching most of the week and working
patiently on his wooden sculpture. His physical
movements have the precision and economy one often
finds in a fine craftsman.
His technique can best be described as carpentry­
it is certainly not carving and has moved radically from
the assemblage of earlier periods. One might compare
his methods with those of George Fullard or Warren
Davis. but only to illustrate the difference. Fullard is
a collagist. working with and seeking inspiration in
wooden scrap; his forms are derived from the associative
nature of the material and a profoundly committed view
of life. Warren Davis is a carver and carpenter. trans­
forming wood into a seemingly malleable material.
And his imagery, like so many English artists. is nature.
albeit the structure of nature rather than its idyllic
appearance.
The recent survey of British sculpture at the Tate
Gallery served as a clearing house of talent. and it
must be admitted that many who showed great
promise in the immediate post-war period were no
longer impressive. Startup is perhaps fortunate that he
enjoyed a lesser reputation, at home and abroad. He
has never held a commercial one-man show of
sculpture; eleven works were shown at the A.I.A.
Gallery in 1962 and the following year a large group
was displayed at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
Since then isolated works have appeared in mixed
exhibitions. Now the Roland Browse and Delbanco
gallery, where in 1954 he held an exhibition of gouaches.
is holding a one-man show of recent sculpture which
should establish his reputation with the wider public.
Prior to 1959 Startup. under the influence of the Slade
School's figurative tradition. worked in bronze. But he
PHOTO: LEWINSKI
soon found the medium too restricting. 'I like using
unyielding materials; for the bronzes I worked direct
in wax. a soft. pliable material. I had to find something
more resistant. At the same time the more brutal forms
I was searching for were easier to achieve in wood.' In
the mixture of carving and joinery evident in the
Figures and Heads of 1962-3. it is clear that. as yet.
he could not dissociate himself from traditional forms
or a semi-traditional use of the material.
He then began to use 'found' shapes. bits of old
furniture. not as parts of an assemblage, but as
occasional decorative elements. Whilst in this period
Startup's natural elegance of form and superb technique
is fully evident. there is a disturbing 'busyness· in the
structures. a Baroque piling on of form. He often used
colour. and on one occasion ceramic. as well as
different woods. to vary texture and increase tension.
The results were often theatrical and self-conscious.
He himself summed up this period in Living Arts 2.
1, 2 + 3 published by the Institute of Contemporary Arts at
Metamorphic Forms the time of his 1963 exhibition:
Mahogany and Pine
Stages I. II and Ill 'Mv work is made with assembled wood, discarded
45 in. High
24 in. Wide furniture, machine-moulded parts, machine-sawn
plants, etc. I find these svmpathetic to work with and
4
Horizontal Figure 1963 less malleable than c!av or plaster. What I like are their
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