Page 32 - Studio International - January 1966

Brazdys: sculptural analysis of reality

by Charles S. Spencer

When I first saw the work of Antanas Brazdys some direct influence. What their work has in common,
years ago, in a domestic exhibition at the Royal College however, is its 'skeletal' construction, echoing the
of Art, I was impressed by an approach to sculpture bone structure in living form, inspired, no matter how
markedly different from that of his English contempor- remotely, by the mechanism of the human body rather
aries. Among his fellow-students at the College, with than evocative shapes in nature, or purely formal
whom he was presented in the Arts Council's exhibition associations.
Towards Art II, in 1965, were Roland Piche, David Brazdys' manner may also be defined by referring to
Hall, William Pye and others now regarded as some of Cubist and Constructivist sculpture. Brazdys himself
the bright young hopes of British sculpture. With them regards Lipchitz as one of the greatest living sculptors,
he has little in common ; there is no trace of what might and admires Moore and Calder. There is much in his
be called the 'intestinal', surrealistic, Baconish imagery, work which recalls Lipchitz's Cubist origins,
nor is he concerned with mechanical, de-humanised or the sculpture of Archipenko and the period
shapes. they represent. Like them his imagination is rooted in
The artist he most resembled in this exhibition was the human body, in organic relationships. These are
Geoffrey Clark, who represents an earlier generation of worked out, or intuitively arrived at, with a logic which
Royal College students, but there is no evidence of any avoids sentimental gloss.
For a young man of 26 years, Brazdys has had a
packed life, which may well account for his maturity.
Born in Lithuania, he was brought to England at the
age of eight when his family left after the
Russian occupation. Until the age of 17 he lived in this
country, where his father practised as a well-known
architect. When the family moved on to America he
studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1961 a
Foreign Travelling Scholarship enabled him to return
to Europe, and he came to London, ostensibly for a
few days en route to Spain. He has remained here ever
since. Professor Bernard Meadows was impressed by
his work and offered him a place at the Royal College.
(This, I might add, was a not untypical gesture.
Meadows is known for his sympathetic response to
youthful talent and afforded the Canadian sculptor
Gerald Gladstone similar hospitality some years ago.)
Brazdys says he was delighted to stay in England
since he did not feel that a five-year art education in
Chicago was sufficient. The Sainsbury Award in 1963
enabled him to continue for a further year. Since then
he has held teaching posts at the Royal College and
the Gloucester College of Art, Cheltenham. He intends
staying in England—'l like it here; a lot of things are
happening in sculpture, the environment is exciting.'
He lives in London but has a large studio—an old
milking shed, in a remote Essex village where a number
of his Royal College contemporaries have organised
an artistic 'hide-out'. Apart from the two
exhibitions referred to, Brazdys has shown work at the
Young Contemporaries and the A.I.A. Gallery. The
present display of 12 recent pieces of sculpture at the
Hamilton Gallery is his first one-man exhibition.
'I'm concerned with beauty—I'm tired of ugliness and
nightmares"; an unfashionable statement for a young
experimental artist. But it is misleading to assume that
he is using these terms in a loaded or old-fashioned
sense. He dislikes pompous, didactic philosophising.
'I'm not concerned with the image of the
20th century, but with symbols for man. I find that
the image of man gets a little boring after a while; and
in any case if you are concerned with image why all
this distortion ? I don't have to be obsessed with
misery to get my point of view across..."
One need only think of the vast area of British
sculpture which evokes the classical image of man and
then distorts it—hacked-off limbs, clawed scabrous
flesh and the like—to appreciate his sentiments. No
wonder the present generation has gone to the other
extreme of de-humanised, unnatural arrangements, with
neither the inherent logic of Cubism or Constructivism,
nor the exorcist compulsion of surrealism. This new