Reg Butler rose to international prominence alongside seven fellow British sculptors when they exhibited together at the 1952 Venice Biennale. Reg Butler, along with Lynn Chadwick and Geoffrey Clarke had taken the same welding course at British Oxygen in 1950 and one of the distinctive elements of the selection of works at Venice was a turn to using welding as a method to make sculpture – a reaction one could say against the ‘truth to materials’ which Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore proposed.

Butler’s long term interest was representing the human form in space and he strove to push the boundaries of figurative sculpture often showing the figure in unusual poses, bending or with arms raised, diving or swimming through space. The small Seated Figure 1 shows a female figure caught in a moment legs outstretched as if about turn and get up. It is from an edition of 8 and is catalogue number 226 in Margaret Garlake’s catalogue raisonne of the artist’s work. It comes from a private collection where it was bought at Sotheby’s in 2007 where it had been consigned from the private collection of Mr & Mrs Kreitman.