This article has been researched and written by Holly Smith, a podcaster and YCT volunteer.
AUSTIN WRIGHT (1911-1997) is a significant post-war sculptor whose personal and professional lives were deeply intertwined with the city of York.
He was born on 4th June 1911 in Chester but spent his childhood in Cardiff. Though a largely self-taught artist, Austin took evening classes at Cardiff Art School. Austin attended New College, University of Oxford for his degree in Modern Languages before he started his teacher training. His first job as a teacher started in 1934 at The Downs, Malvern in Worcestershire. The school attracted artistic people. W.H. Auden taught English for example, and the art master organised a Dada exhibition one year. Here, Austin taught painting and sculpture as well as French and German.
Life As A Teacher
Austin moved to York in 1937 to teach languages at Bootham School. Again, he continued to teach art in the evening. He was one of the nearly 60,000 conscientious objectors during the Second World War and so continued to teach at Bootham School – although the school had been evacuated to Helmsley during this period.[1]
In 1945, Austin married Susan Midgey whom he had met whilst working at The Mount School. The couple would have 3 children together but, before this, they moved into a (at the time derelict) house on the green at Upper Poppleton. In their long garden behind the house, there was a barn which would become his studio for the rest of his life.
Austin taught at York Art School, based at York Art Gallery, between 1949 and 1954. It was here that he explored different types of materials and his range of media expanded to include stone, clay and lead. From here, Austin decided to become a full time artist.
Artistic Successes
Austin’s first surviving wood carvings date to 1939. In the early days, he used blocks of wood provided by a wheelwright in Ampleforth to carve his sculptures.[2] His early work focused on the human form in movement, but Austin would also explore plants and more abstract work throughout his career.
After having been a full-time sculptor for only a year, Austin was invited to exhibit for the British Arts Council show ‘Young British Sculptors.’ The exhibition toured in Scandinavia and South America. Austin was awarded the Xavier da Silveira Acquisition Prize at the São Paulo Biennial – an art biennial founded in 1951 which initially sought to establish access to modern art in Brazil – for his work ‘The Argument’. The four figures play with a recurring theme in Austin’s work that explores the unifying space between people.[3] Charles Sewter wrote in the Manchester Guardian that: “it would not be outrageous, far from it, to claim that Austin Wright is the most gifted sculptor working in Britain today.”[4]
The 1960s would be a truly transformative decade for Austin’s career. He discovered the potential of aluminium which can be stretched thin, is light and cheap. He once commented that the metal “projects its lightness. It speaks out to any form of light in the sky. Come out into the garden and it chirps in a startling way.”[5]
Austin would also be the Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at the University of Leeds from 1961 until 1964. In this role, he was inspired by the Professor of Botany, Irene Manton “who stimulated his interest in plant forms and in the interior structure of plants.”[6] In the words of art historian, James Hamilton, it was, in many ways, “the hinge” of his career.[7]
Arguably his reputation would already be more substantial had he left York for more established centres of the arts, including London.
Sculptures in Yorkshire
When the Yorkshire Sculpture Park was founded in 1977, Austin was one of the first featured artists. But it is the University of York which deserves recognition for its unique concentration of his work. Austin received an Honorary Degree from the university in 1977 and now three sculptures are dotted around its open spaces. This is rare as some of Austin’s works were stolen and sold for scrap, including possibly his sculpture Two Rings which sat on Roppa Moor above Helmsley.
The first ‘Untitled’ sculpture was commissioned for the university in 1967 when it was newly opened. The work is located in the concrete ramp – designed by the architects Robert Matthew Johnson Marshall & Partners – on the walkway to the J B Morrell Library. It is 2.5 metres high and 1.7 metres wide. According to Austin: “the idea started from seeing a big splitting rock with a round hole tunnelled through it on a Devon beach. I combined this with the form of an apple core left by birds who had pecked all the fruit away.”[8]
The second work is the ‘Tears of St Lawrence’ from 1977 which sits on a rooftop at St Lawrence Court, Halifax Collage. Thirdly, the ‘Dryad’ (1984) is situated at Heslington Hall. This sculpture was commissioned by the university and replaced a sculpture by Henry Moore which had been recalled on loan. It depicts the very essence of a reclining figure, sitting in stark contrast to the historic backdrop of the 16th-century country house.
The inspiration behind a number of Austin’s key works have been captured on screen in a documentary, made by Harry Duffin with the assistance of the Yorkshire Arts Association, that is still available to watch today. It offers unique access into Austin’s workshop (his barn in Poppleton), his garden, and the materials that he used to craft sculptures. The video reinforces just how important his garden in Poppleton was for his work – as inspiration, and also as setting for which he displayed his sculptures.
Major retrospectives of his work were organised in the final years of Austin’s career, including at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 1984. In 2011, a hundred years after Austin was born, York Art Gallery curated an exhibition of Austin’s work which recognised his “huge influence on the artistic scene in the city.”[9]
Watch Crispin Wright, Austin’s son, talk about his father’s work and legacy course of Art360 Foundation:
Footnotes
[1] “Major study into role of WW2 conscientious objectors,” Northumbria University, May 9, 2023, accessed April 11, 2024, https://newsroom.northumbria.ac.uk/pressreleases/major-study-into-role-of-ww2-conscientious-objectors-3251599.
[2] Austin Wright, Sculptor – The Secret Middle, directed by Harry Duffin (Concord Film Council, c. 1970), film, 4:08-4:29, https://www.yfanefa.com/record/2048.
[3] “Austin Wright, The Argument, 1955,” Willoughby Gerrish, accessed April 11, 2024, https://www.willoughbygerrish.com/artists/45-austin-wright/works/514-austin-wright-the-argument-1955/; Austin Wright, Sculptor – The Secret Middle, 5:40-7:20.
[4] James Hamilton, “Obituary: Austin Wright,” Independent, Feb 26, 1997, https://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/obituary-austin-wright-1280712.html.
[5] Hamilton, “Obituary: Austin Wright.”
[6] “Austin Wright – Biography,” Willoughby Gerrish, accessed April 11, 2024, https://www.willoughbygerrish.com/artists/45-austin-wright/biography/.
[7] “Austin Wright: Emerging Forms,” University of Leeds, 2017, accessed April 11, 2024, https://library.leeds.ac.uk/events/event/1900/galleries/12/austin-wright-emerging-forms.
[8] James Hamilton,The Sculpture of Austin Wright, (London: Lund Humphries, 1994), 106 quoted in “Untitled sculpture, University of York,” Historic England, Aug 22, 2018, accessed April 11, 2024, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1457112?section=official-list-entry.
[9] “Art gallery commemorates centenary of sculptor’s birth,” The Yorkshire Post, April 14, 2011, accessed April 11, 2024, https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/art-gallery-commemorates-centenary-of-sculptors-birth-1935280.
Key Sources
Austin Wright, Sculptor – The Secret Middle. Directed by Harry Duffin. Concord Film Council, c. 1970. Film. https://www.yfanefa.com/record/2048.
Boden, Maddie. “Who was Austin Wright?” FutureLearn. Accessed April 11, 2024. https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/introducing-art-history-discovering-public-sculpture/0/steps/110190.Hamilton, James. “Obituary: Austin Wright.” Independent. Feb 26, 1997. https://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/obituary-austin-wright-1280712.html