An artist of the quickening world

What is it about Yorkshire, particularly Leeds, that it has bred or trained such a succession of famous modern sculptors? Moore, Hepworth, Armitage and, although it stretches the point, Hirst. All attended Leeds art schools and Armitage was born there on 18 July 1916. Everyone knows Moore, Hepworth, Hirst. But Armitage? How many under 60 remember him? Conventional opinion confines his relevance to the 1950s.

The Kenneth Armitage Foundation (of which I was a trustee) has marked his centenary with an overdue restoration. There have been two books — Kenneth Armitage Sculptor, edited by Ann Elliott, and The Sculpture of Kenneth Armitage by James Scott — and three exhibitions. The first was at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath; now comes the climax with the two Leeds exhibitions, plus three large sculptures temporarily displayed in the city along with Millennium Square’s ‘Both Arms’ (2000), unveiled in Armitage’s presence by Nelson Mandela. A plaque in his honour will be unveiled in the Square to coincide with the Tetley exhibition. Leeds has done him proud.

Most popular

James Tidmarsh

The end of the pick ’n’ mix passport

Quite right, too. If Moore blazed the trail by becoming the first British sculptor to earn an international reputation, Armitage was in the forefront of those who followed. At the exhibition that made his name, when he was one of several young British sculptors representing Britain at the 1952 Venice Biennale, a piece by Moore stood at the entrance as a quality guarantee. Moore’s international status as England’s supreme modern artist had been established with a 1946 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the sculptor’s prize at the 1948 Biennale.

At the time, Armitage had not had a one-man show. In Venice he sold virtually every piece. Peggy Guggenheim, leading collector, was first; Elsa Schiaparelli, leading couturière, second; and he sold two pieces, including his signature sculpture, ‘People in the Wind’ (1950), to the Museum of Modern Art.