|
|
28. Leon Underwood (1890-1975) Simian Ecstasy
Wood engraving, 1933, 190 x 109 mm. Very fine impression on simili-japon with full margins, signed, titled and numbered in pencil from the edition of 250. Underwood was a notable artistic figure in Britain, primarily for his sculpture, but also as a painter, print maker, writer, philosopher and teacher. He has been called “the precursor of modern sculpture in Britain”and, significantly, one of his students was Henry Moore. His work was influenced by ancient African sculpture (on which subject he was something of an expert) and the figures here clearly relate to his sculpture and paintings and show that influence.
Nevertheless, one wonders, where did this weird conception come from? The scene is a bell tower in a church and angels watch the action from above. Nude men and women , in a corybantic frenzy, pull on the ropes to ring the bells, while light, as both rays and particles, pours in from outside. “Ape-like they are and simian,” wrote Ogden Nash in another context, “Instead of normal men and wimien.”
|
|
|
|