Mazemaker II

Details

Michael Ayrton (1921-1975)
Mazemaker II
numbered '2/9' (on the right hand edge of the screen)
bronze with a dark brown and gold patina
14 in. (35.5 cm.) long
Conceived in 1965.

Provenance

Purchased by the present owner at the 1966 exhibition.

Literature

M. Ayrton, Michael Ayrton drawings and sculpture, London, 1966, p. 143, no. 186, another cast illustrated.
P. Cannon-Brookes, Michael Ayrton An Illustrated Commentary, Birmingham, 1978, pp. 87, 141, no. 150, another cast illustrated.

Exhibited

London, Grosvenor Gallery, Michael Ayrton bronzes, paintings, collages and drawings, June - July 1966, no. 3.

Special Notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Daedalus was a subject that Ayrton returned to often in his sculpture, and in Maze Maker Ayrton was showing the maze as a creation of self, made not just by Daedalus, but by all men. In Maze Maker, the image of Daedalus becomes, according to Ayrton: 'any man who, during his life, builds in and around himself a maze of circumstances and experiences and this, it seems to me, we all do. This labyrinth has two inevitably linked functions. It excludes to protect and contains to imprison' (see M. Ayrton, loc. cit.).

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