Page 54 - Studio International - April 1966

John Wragg

by Charles S. Spencer

Born York 1937; John Wragg was born in York, a city half-way between
York School of Art 1953-6; an ancient country town and a modern industrial centre;
Royal College of Art 1956-60;
Sainsbury Award 1960; his family were 'railway people' and his father a model
has taught at Chelsea School engineer. 'As a child I grew up in the environment of
of Art since 1961; precise craftsmanship. I took it for granted. Now I realize
first one-man exhibition
Hanover Gallery 1963; that what my old man was doing was near-art; they had
represented in the collections the complex quality of nature.' His was the background
of the Arts Council, which produced Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth—
Tate Gallery and the
Contemporary Art Society. the unspoiled power of the Yorkshire countryside and the
Exhibiting at the living tradition of craftsmanship. Observation of natural
Hanover Gallery, forms and a respect for manual dexterity—or to put it
April 25 -May 27.
sentimentally, the dignity of labour—may be a clue to this
phenomenon. As Wragg puts it— 'Complex engineering
has the same quality as nature; the eye can't break down
the stages of development, the layers of formation or
creation. Both have a convincing quality, which I feel
inside of me.'
His sculpture has developed from a direct restatement
of natural forms to a synthesis which is more personal
and more authoritative. 'I started out by being in-
fluenced by nature; you never distrust it somehow—a
blade of grass, a tree, the fluid shapes in nature, or for
that matter in a human form, you never question it.'
Until recently his sculpture was oddly eccentric; a basic,

Checkpoint 1963 Chephren 1965
Height 5ft 8 in. Height 6 ft 4 in. Aluminium
Aluminium On the wall is a drawing of the design
which won the Sainsbury Sculpture Commission