ANCESTRAL LANDS

In 1955, around the same time Turnbull began his series of ‘Idols’ and ‘Standing Figures’, he also began working on a seminal sequence of sculptures comprising two or more variously combined elements in bronze, stone or wood (rosewood and ebony). Visually recalling totems, the sculptures within this series carry associations of ancient lands, myth, ritual and ancestral lineages. Together, they echo the scale and presence of the human body in space while drawing on abstracted, simplified forms. Placed directly on the ground, Turnbull allowed each sculpture to exist within the sphere of human activity, their scale relative to, and reliant upon, the position of the viewer.

Turnbull’s totems have clear affinities with the pioneering stacked sculptures of Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) which he’d seen first-hand at the artist’s studio in Paris in the late 1940s. However, unlike Brancusi, who aimed to achieve the modernist principle of ‘absolute harmony’ within his forms, Turnbull’s totems - unsymmetrical and weathered in appearance - give the impression they ‘might have been dug up at any time during the past forty thousand years.’ 18

Turnbull’s stacking idiom began with Horse (1954) (Coll. Tate Gallery, London) (cat no.52) and a year later, he used the same process to create Hannibal (1955), the first example to suggest a standing human figure. These totems were, for the most part, upright figures personifying gods and goddesses (Aphrodite, Janus), kings (Agamemnon 19, Oedipus), warriors (Hannibal), teachers (Lama 20), priestesses (Hero 21 ) and voyagers (Ulysses). The otherworldly names Turnbull assigned his sculptures, underlined his sense of them as ‘person-objects’, he explained later that these forms ‘stand substitute for’ and are not ‘abstractions from’ the human figure. 22

Writing in 1960, Turnbull declared ‘I like the emotional contrast set off by combining bronze, wood, and stone – just bronze, and more bronze everywhere is becoming a bore’ and in his totems, he stressed the unique properties of each material. 23 The bronze elements were either modelled and cast by Turnbull specifically for the work, or were made from pre-existing sculptures and cast forms from his studio – see for example Hero 1 (1958) (cat no.37) and Lama (1961) (cat no.40), where the bronze ‘head’ is stamped with the earlier date ‘57’. In contrast, Turnbull usually found the wood and stone sections in timber and masonry yards. Open to considering objects of any proportion or shape, Turnbull allowed himself to be guided and inspired by the materials available to him. Once selected, he would make only minimal changes to the wood or stone, seeking to retain the material’s natural characteristics. Turnbull took this idea of ‘truth to materials’ from Japanese (and East Asian) art, a long-standing influence on his work which was deepened by his relationship with Kim Lim, who specialised in carving.

In Spring Totem 2 (1962-63) (cat no.36) Turnbull has incorporated part of the trunk of a rosewood tree. Keeping the basic form intact, he has chiselled a series of repetitive marks into the outer surface, in a manner which parallels the expressive marks and textured surfaces found in his paintings. Turnbull has placed this, originally upright, form on its side, on top of the stone section, the resulting image recalling both a felled tree and a figure with outstretched arms. In these sculptures Turnbull returns to the theme of balance. This is particularly evident in Lama (1961) - where a large bronze sphere sits on a thinner wooden column, which is itself placed on an even thinner column in bronze - and in Spring Totem 2 – in which a tiny bronze sphere balances precariously on a ‘T’ shaped wooden beam as though it might roll off at any moment.

Agamemnon (1962) (cat no.32), one of Turnbull’s last works in the totem series, is the only sculpture to include a carved aperture which runs from front to back. Here, the precisely carved internal plane appears to ripple as the light falls across it. The introduction of negative space opens up the form and heightens the sculpture’s relationship to the surrounding environment. Identifying Agamemnon, along with Oedipus and Magellan, as sculptures where Turnbull reaches a ‘high point of silent expressive intensity’, Richard Morphet noted in 1973 how these works ‘focus and embody the idea of human activity (both of sculptor, and of past, present and future spectator/ participants)’, resembling ‘portals or altars and, more strongly than ever totems. ’ 24 Indeed Agamemnon has a notably similar form to the North American Indian Doorway Totem Pole, c1897 in the British Museum and it’s likely Turnbull would have seen this or other examples.

In the early 1960s Turnbull produced a series of large abstract paintings comprising a single, wavering, vertical line. These images echoed the verticality of the totem sculptures, while also suggesting landscapes and rivers as seen from above. Turnbull found the experience of flying profoundly moving and it informed his subsequent conceptualisation of the landscape; alternative ways of thinking about people and places, about lines of descent and ascent, came into focus, as he later reflected:

‘The main thing about flying for me was the fact that the world didn’t any longer look like a Dutch landscape; it looked like an abstract painting. You looked down and you realised that so much of what one felt was true depended on where you were standing to look at it... this experience of having three different fields of movement, where you’ve got up and down and sideways...You have an extraordinary spatial feeling, and there are certain aspects of it that are very primitive...There was this sense at night where you feel you are flying away from the world, this flying into a kind of blackness.’ 25

In the paintings 26-1963 (cat no.33) and 11-1963 (cat no.39) Turnbull has painted this vertical line with his brush, whereas in 24-1963 (cat no.34) and 14-1963 (cat no.38) the central passage is unpainted, the line instead formed inversely, by the expanse of paint surrounding it. The composition of these paintings parallel colour field paintings by Barnett Newman, who would also use one or more vertical bands of colour, which he referred to as ‘zips.’

Military service took Turnbull around the world to countries including India and Sri Lanka. These travels exposed him to non-western cultures, widening his cultural experience and visual vocabulary. The yellow of 24-1963 evokes the barren landscape of the desert, while the greens of 11-1963 and 14-1963 and 26-1963 suggest fertile landscapes and the jungle.

18 William Turnbull, Statement, ‘Group One: Theo Crosby, William Turnbull,

Germano Facetti, Edward Wright,’ This is Tomorrow, exh. cat., Whitechapel Art

Gallery, London, 1956, pp1-4 19 Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae and a warrior who led the Greek army in the Trojan War. 20 Lama is the word for a teacher of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. 21 Hero was a Greek priestess who drowned herself following the death of her lover Leander. 22 William Turnbull, ‘Images without Temples,’ Living Arts, ed. Theo Crosby and

John Bodley, 1963, p15 23 William Turnbull, Statement, in Theo Crosby (ed.), Uppercase 4, Whitefriars,

London, 1960, unpaginated 24 Richard Morphet, ‘Commentary,’ William Turnbull, Sculpture and Painting, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1973, p42 25 ‘William Turnbull in conversation with Colin Renfrew, 6 May 1998,’

William Turbull, Sculpture and Paintings, exh. cat., Waddington Galleries,

London, 1998, p7

Page 105: William Turnbull, 1964 Page 106: William Turnbull’s studio in Hampstead, c1960s Left to right: Agamemnon (1962), Hannibal (1955), Drum Head (1955), Hero 1 or Hero 2 (1958), Photograph by Kim Lim Page 108-9: William Turnbull retrospective exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, 1973 Page 110-11: William Turnbull’s studio in Hampstead, c1962, Photograph by Kim Lim

LIST OF WORKS

Works available for sale are marked with an asterisk * Additional cataloguing for these works can found at the back of the book on pages 197–203

(page 120-21) |32 Agamemnon (1962) * bronze, rosewood and stone 170.2 × 45.7 × 46.5 cm stamped with the artist’s monogram on bronze section unique (detail page 119)

(page 122) |33 26-1963 (1963) oil on canvas 203.2 × 152.4 cm titled verso Private Collection, UK

(page 123) |34 24-1963 (1963) * oil on canvas 203.2 × 152.4 cm titled verso

(page 125) |35 Oedipus 3 (1962) bronze, rosewood and stone 193.7 (height) × 48.3 (diameter) cm stamped with the artist's monogram and dated on bronze column unique Private Collection (detail page 124)

(page 126-27) |36 Spring Totem 2 (1962-63) bronze, rosewood and stone 101.6 × 155 × 44.5 cm unique Private Collection (page 129) |37 Hero 1 (1958) bronze and stone 104.1 × 46.6 × 66 cm stamped with the artist’s monogram and dated ‘57’ on bronze section unique Private Collection (detail page 128)

(page 130) |38 14-1963 (1963) oil on canvas 152.4 × 152.4 cm signed and dated verso

(page 131) |39 11-1963 (1963) * oil on canvas 152.4 × 152.4 cm titled verso

(page 133) |40 Lama (1961) bronze and rosewood 154.9 cm (height) stamped with the artist’s monogram on both bronze sections, dated '57' on top bronze section unique Private Collection (detail page 132)

|33 26-1963 (1963)

|34 24-1963 (1963) *

‘ I’D LIKE TO BE ABLE TO MAKE ONE SATURATED FIELD OF COLOUR, SO THAT YOU WOULDN’T FEEL YOU WERE SHORT OF ALL THE OTHERS. ’