Polyphemus is one of Bryan Kneale’s largest steel wall works and whose name, like most of Kneale’s sculptures, takes inspiration from Greek Mythology: Polyphemus being one of the Cyclops described in Homer’s Odyssey. With this in mind, it is easy to look upon Kneale’s work as a large eye or gateway into a mythological past. Welded in steel and treated to look like bronze, he adopted this technique of surface treatment earlier in his career.

Born in the Isle of Man in 1930, Bryan Kneale attended the Douglas School of Art in 1947, before leaving to attend the Royal Academy Schools in 1948, where he was awarded the prestigious Rome Prize. He spent most of this time travelling Italy and was greatly
influenced by his visits to Paestum and Pompeii, as well as by the contemporary work of the futurists and metaphysical painters.

Upon his return to London, Kneale began using a palette knife as a tool for painting, constructing the work; his paintings gained a strong following and he painted the portraits of Richard Attenborough and Norman Parkinson to name but a few. However, painting in this manner soon ceased to interest Kneale and in 1959, his thoughts still on sculpture, he learnt to forge and weld. His solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1966 followed.

Not content with making and exhibiting, Kneale has also spent much of his career curating and teaching. The first abstract sculptor to be elected to the Royal Academy he very quickly went on to mount ‘British Sculptors’, the seminal exhibition of Modern British Sculpture at the RA in 1972. An exhibition of the work of twenty-four sculptors working in the UK at the time, it has since been described as the most groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary sculpture held in Britain. He also curated the Jubilee exhibition of British Sculpture in Battersea Park in 1977. Bryan Kneale’s career as a teacher began at the Royal College of Art in 1952, becoming Head of Sculpture in 1985 and Professor of Drawing in 1990. Metal is the main source of inspiration for Kneale in his sculpture but he is also a highly skilled draughtsman whose intricate drawings are also highly sculptural. His innate fear of repetition means that once a form becomes too familiar it is immediately discarded.

Bryan Kneale has exhibited widely both within the UK and internationally and his work can be found in many prestigious public collections including the Tate Collection; The British Museum; The Natural History Museum, London; The Arts Council of Great Britain; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Victoria, S. Australia; Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paolo, Brazil and the National Gallery of New Zealand. Bryan Kneale is represented by Pangolin London.