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Austin Andrew Wright
Austin Andrew Wright (4 June 1911, Chester – 22 February 1997, Upper Poppleton, York) was a British sculptor and teacher.
Wright was brought up in Cardiff where he took his first artistic steps in evening classes at Cardiff Art School before studying Modern Languages at New College, Oxford. Following his teacher training his first post was at The Downs, the Malvern College preparatory school, in 1934, where he taught painting and sculpture as well as French and German. W.H. Auden was a fellow teacher there.
He moved to Yorkshire in 1937 and lived and worked in York (where Auden was born), initially at Bootham School, where he had earlier undertaken his teacher-training and where he began working as a sculptor. Without any formal art training, Austin, according to James Hamilton, The sculpture of Austin Wright, 1994. “approached Henry Moore for advice and encouragement, and recalled being told, quite bluntly, just to get on with it.”
He branched out into teaching art, subsequently moving to The Mount, where he met Sue Midgley. By the end of the war, and the conclusion of her training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, they married and moved, in 1946, into the 1793 house on the Green at Upper Poppleton that would become integral to his work.
He was a pivotal figure in the development of sculpture from the 1940s onwards.
By 1954 he had given up teaching to devote his time to sculpture and drawing.
Wright's early success was fairly rapid. After exhibiting in “Modern Art in Yorkshire” in 1955 alongside Eduardo Paolozzi, Kenneth Armitage and Elisabeth Frink, he was invited by The British Council to show in “Younger British Sculptors”, an exhibition that toured Sweden in 1956. This exhibition included Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, William Turnbull and Geoffrey Clarke but it was of Wright that the Guardian art critic, Charles Sewter, wrote: “It would not be outrageous to claim that Wright is the most gifted sculptor working in Britain today”.
Although influenced by Henry Moore, and usually seen as an abstract artist, in fact Austin followed his own path, going through several phases in his career, working with different materials and ideas, and making very many sketches as well as sculptures, often figurative as well as abstract. He was strongly influenced by the landscape and flora of Yorkshire; his work revealing the inspiration he felt from nature.
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Austin Andrew Wright
Austin Andrew Wright (4 June 1911, Chester – 22 February 1997, Upper Poppleton, York) was a British sculptor and teacher.
Wright was brought up in Cardiff where he took his first artistic steps in evening classes at Cardiff Art School before studying Modern Languages at New College, Oxford. Following his teacher training his first post was at The Downs, the Malvern College preparatory school, in 1934, where he taught painting and sculpture as well as French and German. W.H. Auden was a fellow teacher there.
He moved to Yorkshire in 1937 and lived and worked in York (where Auden was born), initially at Bootham School, where he had earlier undertaken his teacher-training and where he began working as a sculptor. Without any formal art training, Austin, according to James Hamilton, The sculpture of Austin Wright, 1994. “approached Henry Moore for advice and encouragement, and recalled being told, quite bluntly, just to get on with it.”
He branched out into teaching art, subsequently moving to The Mount, where he met Sue Midgley. By the end of the war, and the conclusion of her training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, they married and moved, in 1946, into the 1793 house on the Green at Upper Poppleton that would become integral to his work.
He was a pivotal figure in the development of sculpture from the 1940s onwards.
By 1954 he had given up teaching to devote his time to sculpture and drawing.
Wright's early success was fairly rapid. After exhibiting in “Modern Art in Yorkshire” in 1955 alongside Eduardo Paolozzi, Kenneth Armitage and Elisabeth Frink, he was invited by The British Council to show in “Younger British Sculptors”, an exhibition that toured Sweden in 1956. This exhibition included Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, William Turnbull and Geoffrey Clarke but it was of Wright that the Guardian art critic, Charles Sewter, wrote: “It would not be outrageous to claim that Wright is the most gifted sculptor working in Britain today”.
Although influenced by Henry Moore, and usually seen as an abstract artist, in fact Austin followed his own path, going through several phases in his career, working with different materials and ideas, and making very many sketches as well as sculptures, often figurative as well as abstract. He was strongly influenced by the landscape and flora of Yorkshire; his work revealing the inspiration he felt from nature.