Lot 178: JOHN HOSKIN

STANDING FIGURE 1964

height: 150cm.; 59in.; width: 66cm.; 26in.; breadth: 25.5cm.; 10in.

welded mild steel

London, Grosvenor Gallery, 1964;
London, Tate Gallery, British Sculpture of the 60s, 1965.

The Artist's Family
Sale, Sotheby's, 28th June 2006, lot 225

Trained as an architectural draughtsman, Hoskin began sculpting in 1951, and in 1957 followed Kenneth Armitage as Head of Sculpture at Corsham Court.

His best-known work is almost entirely in welded steel, and thus is very much in keeping with the manner of the period, especially the early work of Reg Butler and Lynn Chadwick, and in the late 1950s and early 1960s he was widely exhibited and much acclaimed. However, like many of his contemporaries, his career was supported by his teaching, the demands of which gradually affected his output and made him less prominent than should have been the case. The current reappraisal of the remarkable strength of British sculpture after WWII will undoubtedly return him to a deserved prominence.