LYNN CHADWICK: HYPERCYCLE/ CHAPITRE I: SCALÈNE (1947-1962)

“Hypercycle,” curated by art historian Matthieu Poirier, is a series of exhibitions at several sites across three continents from 2024 to 2026, with three chapters, each tracing a part of Lynn Chadwick career.

October 12 – November 16, 2024

These works by Chadwick are abstract, but already full of naturalist echoes. Around 1951–1952, his sculptures left the air and, while still not submitting to gravity, seemed to step (or rather tiptoe) on the ground or on bases. These works sometimes took the form of stabiles that were articulated and flexible, but most often they depicted enigmatic “beasts” and other humanoid, stylised figures with atrophied heads and limbs. On the international scene, Lynn Chadwick was celebrated as embodying the renewal of postwar British sculpture, and he soon received many awards, such as the International Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale of 1956.

Inspired by recent discoveries in architecture and fascinated by the work of Charles Darwin, Chadwick worked tirelessly on the sculptural implications of the exoskeleton, including the shell of insects and the carapace of tortoises. In other words, he brought to the surface something that sculpture usually hides from view. Many of the artist’s bronzes resemble fossils, flayed or deprived of their surrounding flesh, as their geometrical sections also evoke medieval armour or even origami.

Leaving London in the mid-1940s, Chadwick set up his studio in the Cotswolds, where in 1958 he purchased the neo-Gothic castle of Lypiatt. He transformed its dilapidated interiors into an immaculate white cube for his sculptures. He thus created a profound and lasting link between his artistic practice and the surrounding natural environment, with its gigantic trees, geographical features, flora and fauna.

Combining the living and the architectural, and shaped by the artist-architect, this environment became both a setting for his work and a major source of inspiration.