Defying traditional definitions of portraiture, this new body of work from highly regarded Royal Academician William Tucker marks a new chapter in his long career of pushing artistic and academic boundaries.
William Tucker (b. 1935) is one of Britain’s most important living sculptors. Having graduated from St Martin’s School of Art in 1960 where he studied under Sir Anthony Caro. Included in the influential 'New Generation' exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1965 Tucker went on to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale and was given a solo show by the Arts Council at the Serpentine Gallery. In 1974, Tucker published his highly influential book 'The Language of Sculpture' and the following year curated the major Arts Council exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, entitled 'The Condition of Sculpture'.
After moving to New York in the 1980s Tucker began to display an increasing interest in the human figure and began modelling from plaster and casting into bronze. Now in his late 80s, this new body of work takes that exploration a stage further and is inspired by the question of identity and the specificity of the subject in a portrait.
