Lynn Chadwick

Born 24 November 1914
Died 2003

Active: 1937 - 2003

Country of birth and death: England

Sculptor, architectural draughtsman, designer

Born Barnes, London. Trained and worked as draughtsman in architectural practice 1933-39. Pilot in Fleet Air Arm 1941-44. Architectural work resumed 1944-46 and also worked as designer of textiles, furniture 1946-52. Early metal mobiles from 1946, figurative and animal forms in iron and composition in 1950s, many cast in bronze. Awarded prize in UPP 1953; International Sculpture Prize VB 1956; 1st prize at Concorso Internazionale del Bronzetto, Padua 1959. C.B.E. 1964. Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres 1985. Senior RA 2001.

Commissions include: Fisheater for Arts Council shown at RBA Galleries 1951; Sleep for Vono Bedding Centre, London 1953; Air League of British Empire commissioned memorial to commemmorate double crossing of Atlantic in R34 Airship July 1919, model accepted 1957, proposal withdrawn 1958 following opposition to Stranger III at London Airport.

Exhibitions include: Middelheim Park, Antwerp Biennales 1953, 1957, 1959 and 1961; Documenta I and II, Kassel 1955 and 1959; Gimpel Fils 1950, 52 (solos) ; SB 1951 (3 works); VB 1952, 56; LCC 1954, 57, 60; SPB 1957, 61; AC 1957, 60, 61; BC 1956; BCSP 57; Marlborough Gallery from 1961; The New Decade, Museum of Modern Art, New York 1955; Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris 1958 (solo); Saidenberg Gallery, New York 1957 (solo).

Collections include: Tate; Arts Council; British Council; Museé Nationale d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Further reading: A. Bowness, Lynn Chadwick, (London: Methuen,1962).
A. Causey, Lynn Chadwick, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 29 September 1991 – 23 February 1992, (exh. cat.).
D. Farr and E. Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick, Sculptor: With a Complete Illustrated Catalogue 1947-1988, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990)
L. Chadwick, ‘A Sculptor and his Public’ in The Listener, 21 October 1954.
E. Lucie-Smith, Chadwick, (Stroud: Lypiatt Studio, 1997).

Biography from Whiteley (2001)

Citing this record

'Lynn Chadwick', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=ann_1280062491, accessed 21 Mar 2023]