Page 34 - Studio International - March 1966

Left Two events were to lead the way; first, and by far the arrangement of forms lends itself to commonplace
Four Elements// (detail) 1965
Steel painted black most important, was Mondrian. He came across some prettiness.
Height 7 ft Length 18 ft Width 5 ft reproductions of Mondrian's work which led him to a The break with Cornwall came none too soon. He
Right detailed study of the master, through which he became returned to Mondrian principles of formality and
Brown Bomber (detail) 1965 acquainted with the experiments of Vantongerloo, simplicity. Theo Van Doesburg, the propagandist of the
Steel painted brown
Height 3 ft Length 8 ft Width 8 ft Moholy-Nagy, the Russian Constructivists Tatlin and de Stijl group, encouraged an art moving 'towards the
Lissitsky, and their younger disciples Gabo and Pevsner. abstract and universal idea, i.e. away from awkwardness
The second event was his move to St. Ives. This like and individuality'. Without indulging in such Teutonic
the trip to Paris was a youthful, romantic quest. He definitions, this dictum is echoed by Wall when he says,
arrived in 1955 and worked in restaurants, meeting 'With my things there is only one interpretation ; I like
as many artists as he could. The most important of his the uncompromising clarity of abstraction precisely
contacts were David Lewis, who had written on because it is impossible to interpret it in any other way
Mondrian and Brancusi, and the painter John Forrester. than the artist means. Traditional figurative sculpture is
Under their influence he began to sculpt, or rather too open to subjective judgement. Brancusi, for
construct, first in wood and then tentatively in metal. instance, can only be thought of in one way. Rodin, on
He was completely untrained as a craftsman and the other hand, has a flamboyance which worries me, a
urgently needed experience. Through Dennis Mitchell, kind of theatrical over-presentation. Thus in con-
then senior assistant to Barbara Hepworth, he secured temporary American art I like Barnett Newman's
a job with the sculptress, with whom he worked from directness and clarity (which I don't find in Pollock)
1956 to 1960. Through Miss Hepworth he met Ben or the late work of David Smith'.
Nicholson and thus the link with Gabo and Construc- At his last one-man show in 1964 The Times critic said
tivism was joined. his forms were 'best in their least complex and least
'By 1956I was already on my way; I had digested my symmetrical compositions.' It is in these qualities his
influences. Working with Hepworth made no difference greatest strength lies; and by being able to work on a
to that, but I soon became expert in handling wood or large scale for his exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery
stone, plaster and metal. This was my real education. in April he has arrived at an impressive monumentality.
I think I am the only sculptor who worked with her who The sculptures are variations on a few limited shapes
was not directly influenced by her work. But for the first — flat panels or circles, tubular arms, four-side boxes
time I learned what it was to be a professional artist. without top or bottom. In this restricted language Wall
I worked three days a week, sometimes two; I needed shows syntactic ingenuity, combinations of endless
the job and the money, which meant the opportunity possibilities. There is no attempt to disguise the size
to work for myself'. and weight of the elements ; the shapes are not made
In 1955 Wall was making free-standing wooden boxes, comfortable or comforting, certainly not prettified.
painted in primary colours, like three-dimensional In contrast to these bits of 'creative engineering', to
Mondrians. He admits to the influence of Nicholson at use Herbert Read's phrase, Adams' style can be seen
this time, but clearly the intimate, cosy involvement to be more poetic and intimate, in jewel-like com-
with landscape and abstraction was not what he was plexities. Caro, on the other hand, is not merely uncon-
after. Even at that stage his forms were more absolute, cerned with the character of his material, he is anxious
more universal, than usually attracts British artists. By to disguise it with pastel colours and a sinuous, dancing
the time he left Cornwall he worked exclusively in metal, calligraphy which has more in common with the flatness
and here, curiously enough, one can detect a greater of paint.
allusion to natural forms. For one thing many of the Wall's 'truth' to his material is not a self-conscious,
designs stand on a stem-like rod and the symmetrical back-to-mother-nature, exploitation. He is not describ-