369 An unusual aluminium figural sculpture 2nd half 20th century on hardwood base 92cm high £350-550 he was invited by The British Council to show in “Younger British Sculptors”, an exhibition that toured Sweden in 1956. This exhibition included Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, William Turnbull and Geoffrey Clarke but it was of Wright that the Guardian art critic, Charles Sewter, wrote: “It would not be outrageous to claim that Wright is the most gifted sculptor working in Britain today”. His work, ‘’The Argument’’, won the acquisition prize at the São Paulo Biennial in 1957. 368S Austin Wright Main Road Aluminium
He was Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at Leeds University from 1961-4 and was awarded an Honorary Degree in 1977 by The University of York, where two of his sculptures can be found.
320cm high Provenance: This lot is sold with a photocopy of a letter from the sculptor to the buyer relating to Main Road, together with a copy of the original sales receipt from the Goosewell Gallery, Menston-inWharfedale dated 10th May 1971. Austin Andrew Wright 1911-1997 was a British sculptor and teacher. Wright’s early success was fairly rapid. After exhibiting in “Modern Art in Yorkshire” in 1955 alongside Eduardo Paolozzi, Kenneth Armitage and Elisabeth Frink,
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Despite the praise that Austin Wright’s work has received, he is, on the whole, a greatly neglected sculptor. Although his work has been exhibited widely, with many one-man exhibitions in London and Europe, he is more known in the North of England, with major retrospectives at Wakefield (1960), Newcastle upon Tyne (1974), the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (1984), Hull (1988) and York (2011). Examples of his work can be seen on public display in Bradford, Leeds and York. Further examples of Austin’s works can be viewed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. £800-1200