Yorkshire takeover: Anthony Caro’s sculptures celebrated across Leeds and Wakefield
![Yorkshire Sculpture Park.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/QCTKURZwiUvP3UDWQ5EBtS-415-80.jpg)
Anthony Caro believed that sculpture that was exhibited outdoors should be made outdoors. The late British artist, who died in 2013, also thought works should hang from ceilings, balance on table edges and fill awkward corners. For him, the space around a work was as important as the work itself.
This summer, Caro is celebrated across Yorkshire with exhibitions at the Hepworth Wakefield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and seminars at the Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Art Gallery. Organised with the help of his studio and wife – who died earlier this year – the programme features 80 works, spanning 60 years of his career.
Hepworth Wakefield explores the role of architecture in Caro's work through 40 of these. Starting with his seminal painted steel sculptures and Table Pieces from the 1960s, it moves through the cage-like series made outdoors at the Emma Lake workshop in Canada, 1977, and culminates with steel, wood and Perspex works from 2013.
In 1987, Caro collaborated with Frank Gehry to design a 'Sculpture Village' featuring constructions the pair coined as 'Sculpitecture'. On completing the Millennium Bridge with Norman Foster in 2000, Caro declared that, 'Architecture has come to play an important part in my thinking during the past ten or 15 years, but when I look back I think it was always there.'
The sculptor had a long history of working in Yorkshire, especially at the Sculpture Park, which was an early supporter of his practice. Rarely-seen sketches and figurative works are on show at the park's Longside Gallery while eight of his never-before-seen Flats, rendered in rusted and varnished steel in the 1970s, shimmer under the dappled shade of giant horse chestnut trees. In the main building, the 18th-century Bretton Hall where Henry Moore permanently takes centre stage, a series of Caro's models are also on display.
That the two great British sculptors are on show under the same roof is fitting. Caro was Moore's studio assistant from 1951–1953 and they remained friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) rivals until Moore's death in 1986.
Anthony Caro believed sculpture that was to be exhibited outdoors should be made outdoors. Pictured: After Emma, 1977/1982, on view at Hepworth Wakefield.
Double Shot, 1987/1993, on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
First National, 1964, on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Paris Green, 1966.
Palanquin, 1987–91, on view at Hepworth Wakefield. Courtesy of Barford Sculptures Ltd
Month of May, 1963.
End of Time, 2013, on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Autumn Rhapsody, 2011–12.
Terminus, 2013. Courtesy of Barford Sculptures Ltd
Left: Double Flats, 1974, made in rusted and varnished steel. Right: Aurora, 2000–03, installation on view outside Leeds Art Gallery and the Henry Moore Institute
Child’s Tower Room, 1983/1984, on view at Hepworth Wakefield.
ADDRESS
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Emma O'Kelly is a freelance journalist and author based in London. Her books include Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat and she is currently working on a UK guide to wild saunas, due to be published in 2025.
-
Phaidon’s new Graphic Classics is a lavish greatest hits of graphic design
Graphic Classics is a compendium of seven centuries of visual culture, from the everyday and ephemeral to visionary works that reshaped our world
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Birley Chocolate hits the sweet ’n’ chic spot in London’s Chelsea
The new Birley Chocolate shop, a sibling to Birley Bakery, is a confection of colour as delicious as its finely crafted goods
By Melina Keays Published
-
Feel at home at Auberge, Château La Coste's new inn for culture lovers
Auberge La Coste sits at the heart of the art-filled estate, minutes away from the joyful town of Aix-en-Provence
By Harriet Thorpe Published
-
Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self’s colourful ode to the landscape of her childhood
Tschabalala Self’s new show at Finland's Espoo Museum of Modern Art evokes memories of her upbringing, in vibrant multi-dimensional vignettes
By Millen Brown-Ewens Published
-
Wanås Konst sculpture park merges art and nature in Sweden
Wanås Konst’s latest exhibition, 'The Ocean in the Forest', unites land and sea with watery-inspired art in the park’s woodland setting
By Alice Godwin Published
-
Pino Pascali’s brief and brilliant life celebrated at Fondazione Prada
Milan’s Fondazione Prada honours Italian artist Pino Pascali, dedicating four of its expansive main show spaces to an exhibition of his work
By Kasia Maciejowska Published
-
John Cage’s ‘now moments’ inspire Lismore Castle Arts’ group show
Lismore Castle Arts’ ‘Each now, is the time, the space’ takes its title from John Cage, and sees four artists embrace the moment through sculpture and found objects
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Gerhard Richter unveils new sculpture at Serpentine South
Gerhard Richter revisits themes of pattern and repetition in ‘Strip-Tower’ at London’s Serpentine South
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Peter Blake’s sculptures spark joy at Waddington Custot in London
‘Peter Blake: Sculpture and Other Matters’, at London's Waddington Custot, spans six decades of the artist's career
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Oozing, squidgy, erupting forms come alive at Hayward Gallery
‘When Forms Come Alive: Sixty Years of Restless Sculpture’ at Hayward Gallery, London, is a group show full of twists and turns
By Hannah Silver Published
-
New glass sculpture creates a verdant wonderland at Apple’s Cupertino HQ
‘Mirage’ at Apple Park is the work of Zeller & Moye and artist Katie Paterson, a shimmering array of glass columns that snakes through the grounds of the company’s monumental HQ
By Jonathan Bell Published