Page 50 - Studio International - June 1972

sleazy. This is typical of the early work. The
sculpture of this period has a scroungy and
matter-of-fact quality. Red Riding Hood is a
frocked, female torso upright on a crumpled
base. The base is a low mound which extrudes
at the rear to form a tall, slender, very
schematic tree. The crown of the tree is a
buckled flap surmounting the sculpture like a
small canopy. The flap of the tree is painted
black on its barely visible upper surface. The
dress of the torso is a glossy red cadmium light.
The sculpture is made of reinforced plaster and
is eight and a half feet high. Upon a Painted
Ocean (1964-65) is a tableau, fifty inches high.
The cast of a male torso, classically derived,
truncated at the waist and thighs, stands on a
base. The base is a low, four-sided bank. The
surface of the bank is smooth but undulating.
It rises sharply at the rear in a concave curve
(Above)
and this forms a headboard to the base. Attached Lady in Niche 1972
to and surmounting the headboard at an oblique 26x 19 X I2 in.
Mixed media
angle is a high-relief of bulgy, simulated clouds.
The relief and its support resemble a memorial (Above right)
The Wall 1972
stele or stela. The front and right side of the
5 ft 4 in. x 6 ft 6 in. x 5 ft
bank is cambered; the left edge is ragged and Mixed media
irregular. Distributed around the torso are a
(Right)
collection of bulky, fin-like 'waves'. Each wave Rockery with Pool 1972
inclines to the right and has a nodular crest. 1ft 7 in. x 6 ft x 4 ft 2 in.
Mixed media
The torso is gilded, the waves are cerulean,
and the clouds are sprayed a bleached sky-blue.
[colour photos courtesy of
With the exception of the latex waves the Felicity Samuels Gallery.]
tableau is made of reinforced plaster.
Around 1965 the sculpture became more
specific and literal. Abrahams began to employ, thirty-two inches high. A partially draped form with an established hierarchy of types and
gradually at first, a more sophisticated female nude, head and arms truncated, stands tokens. The antecedents of the suburban garden
methodology. The scheme of the work is on a low pedestal in a simulated lawn. The drape are to be found in the `gardenesque' artifacts of
a priori, less casual, more emphatic and is a scalloped pendant hanging from the right the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The
distinct. Houdini is an animated tailcoat upright shoulder to the base. The lawn is a rectangle derivation, however, is much adulterated.
on a base, thirty-six inches high. The base is a framed on three sides by a path of crazy Unlike its historical precedent, the suburban
drum, its sides symmetrically indented like a paving. The unframed edge adjoins an external garden does not engender feelings of sublimity.
multifoil. The coat appears to be inhabited by a wall. The sculpture resists the usual It is not an object of inspiration or rapture: it is
truncated figure, somewhat jauntily disposed. perambulation. This is fairly typical. The figure primarily a fixture of bourgeois domesticity. It
As in the later Figure on a Lawn the rear of the is adjacent to and faces the external wall; thus, is bland and monotonous.
figure is obverse; it is more or less a shell, its only its back is visible. It is essentially a shell, Abrahams's early garden sculptures are
front scooped out. The coat is cast in latex, the its cavity inaccessible to the viewer. The nude predominantly miniature in scale. Their
base reinforced plaster. The sculpture is is unprepossessing; it is lumpish and `gardenesque' features are rudimentary:
sprayed predominantly alizarin crimson with a overweight, modelled in a debased neo-classic topiaries, rolled lawns, clipped trees, etc. They
black stippling effect. Houdini is conspicuously style. The figure is latex sprayed a dull pink, the were initially intended as maquettes for larger
theatrical : the base is like a stage. The figure lawn is a green rayon flock on board with a fake pieces. However, in their diminutive form, the
has tremendous aplomb. roller mower effect, and the crazy paving is scale seemed appropriate and commensurate
Tableau Historique has the portico of a latex, illusionistically rendered. with the axiom that 'the garden should be
classical temple, forty inches high, ostensibly In 1967, Abrahams became interested in the appreciated at a single glance'. Abrahams came
Greek, set in a landscape. The landscape is organization and design of suburban gardens. to view these models as sufficient and discrete.
green latex and is more or less a backdrop, This interest was prompted by a prior study of As the garden theme developed Abrahams
inclining to the left. The portico is reinforced garden statuary. Initially, the garden was incorporated it into graphic work. He
plaster in grey and consists, nominally, of a employed as a setting or location for the extracted the imagery of garden literature and
colonnade, entablature and stylobate. The commemorative objects. Gradually, however, subsequently produced a series of silkscreen
colonnade is extremely odd. Its pillars are Abrahams came to view the garden as an prints. The prints are often flocked in parts;
attached to a wall as in a pseudo-peripteral object in itself. The sculpture reflected this the later images are complex cut-outs shaped
arrangement; these half columns are clustered transition and the commemorative aspect of the with special form-cutting tools. Spatially, they
in two pairs. The middle pillars are Doric and work subsequently diminished. For Abrahams, billow and recede.
Ionic, respectively; the latter is slightly the garden and the monument had obvious The garden models are essentially sculptured
recessed. The two flank columns have affinities : they were both 'collective surfaces. The model is cast in latex from a
rectangular shafts. representations'. The garden, Abrahams noted, plaster mould; often styrene is employed,
The seminal work of this period is Figure on is a prescribed, socially approved, repetitive shaped accordingly, and then dipped in or
a Lawn (1965-68) which anticipates the later object. Its purpose is to evoke sentiment and coated with latex. Garden vegetation is
garden sculpture. It is a statuary piece, susceptibility. Aesthetically, it is a stipulated simulated by commercial flock which is sprayed

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