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Lot Essay
Chadwick developed the theme of the 'Stranger' throughout his career, but the pieces had first appeared in 1954 with an upright, bird-like creature, with a sharp beak, and out-stretched wings. These images mutate through the decade to appear as a single figure sculpture with a large rectangular head by 1959, the year of the present work.
The 'Stranger' works coincide with Chadwick's development of a new technique in the creation of his sculpture, as Dennis Farr (op. cit., p. 9) has recorded, 'an elaborate and carefully constructed web of welded rods which form triangular units that are joined together at various angles to express the planes and sharp contours of [its] body, the whole supported on four thinly tapered forged legs ... the interstices of this web are filled with 'Stolit', an industrial artificial stone compound of gypsum and iron powder, which is applied wet like plaster and which, on drying, sets glass-hard. It can then be worked and chased, coloured, or more usually left to weather. The iron armatures rust and expand on contact with moisture absorbed by Stolit, so that straight profiles become subtly curved with the passage of time, especially if the sculpture is left in a damp environment. The ribbed texture produced by this method imparts a fossilized look to the sculpture that suggests some skeletal prehistoric creature. The effect is at once eerie and startling.
'The construction of these armatures of linked tetrahedrons which are then filled in with compound over a base of expanded polystyrene foam is a laborious, time-consuming method, and has the disadvantage that copies cannot be made ... But the construction technique, whatever its shortcomings, initiated a fresh stream of ideas for sculpture in Chadwick's mind'.
The 'Stranger' works coincide with Chadwick's development of a new technique in the creation of his sculpture, as Dennis Farr (op. cit., p. 9) has recorded, 'an elaborate and carefully constructed web of welded rods which form triangular units that are joined together at various angles to express the planes and sharp contours of [its] body, the whole supported on four thinly tapered forged legs ... the interstices of this web are filled with 'Stolit', an industrial artificial stone compound of gypsum and iron powder, which is applied wet like plaster and which, on drying, sets glass-hard. It can then be worked and chased, coloured, or more usually left to weather. The iron armatures rust and expand on contact with moisture absorbed by Stolit, so that straight profiles become subtly curved with the passage of time, especially if the sculpture is left in a damp environment. The ribbed texture produced by this method imparts a fossilized look to the sculpture that suggests some skeletal prehistoric creature. The effect is at once eerie and startling.
'The construction of these armatures of linked tetrahedrons which are then filled in with compound over a base of expanded polystyrene foam is a laborious, time-consuming method, and has the disadvantage that copies cannot be made ... But the construction technique, whatever its shortcomings, initiated a fresh stream of ideas for sculpture in Chadwick's mind'.