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Tim Stead
Tim Stead MBE (March 1952 – 21 April 2000) was a British sculptor and furniture maker who worked primarily in wood.
Tim Stead was born in 1952 and brought up near Helsby one of four brothers, in rural Cheshire. He was educated at Heronwater Prep School [now Coed Coch] and The Leys School, Cambridge. He attended art-school at Nottingham Trent University, School of Art and Design and undertook a post-diploma course at Glasgow School of Art.
After living in Glasgow for a period, he moved to Harestanes in the Scottish Borders and then to Blainslie near Lauder which was his home until his death in April 2000. Stead's house The Steading was also home to his wife, Maggy, and their children Sam and Emma.
Stead was a sculptor before he was a furniture maker.
Sculpturally, Stead's work did not appear to derive from any particular art historical tradition although the ideas of Brancusi, Beuys and Hundertwasser, amongst others, were central to his vision. Early on, he rejected Conceptualism, particularly in the way it was practiced at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham, where he completed the early part of his training. An early work, 'Burnt Tower with Creaking Pendulum’ contains most of his essential vocabulary, later expanded and refined. The piece shows items of worn driftwood bound together with rope, spectacularly off centre and asymmetrical.
Stead's work as a furniture maker could not be separated from his ideas as a sculptor. His furniture owed something to Art Nouveau, in particular Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Majorelle and Victor Horta; his training at Glasgow School of Art was influential in this respect.
In his post-graduate year at Glasgow School of Art and in the year following, Stead's early use of abandoned and found materials developed into the use of hardwoods, some imported. Stead later committed to using only native timbers, notably burred elm and other 'imperfect' wood previously considered unfit for anything other than firewood, though now become highly desirable. He was attracted by thrift and by the heightened singularity of these timbers and the challenge of making virtues of their apparent unsuitability for furniture. Stead had begun exploiting the waney edge of the timber before learning of the work of George Nakashima who wrote The Soul of a Tree, a book highly respected by Stead as expressing much of his own feelings and beliefs.
The first volume of his poems (Towers published posthumously in 2000 ) – all written between 1998 and 1999– deal in part with Stead's chosen sculptural medium:wood.
Tim Stead
Tim Stead MBE (March 1952 – 21 April 2000) was a British sculptor and furniture maker who worked primarily in wood.
Tim Stead was born in 1952 and brought up near Helsby one of four brothers, in rural Cheshire. He was educated at Heronwater Prep School [now Coed Coch] and The Leys School, Cambridge. He attended art-school at Nottingham Trent University, School of Art and Design and undertook a post-diploma course at Glasgow School of Art.
After living in Glasgow for a period, he moved to Harestanes in the Scottish Borders and then to Blainslie near Lauder which was his home until his death in April 2000. Stead's house The Steading was also home to his wife, Maggy, and their children Sam and Emma.
Stead was a sculptor before he was a furniture maker.
Sculpturally, Stead's work did not appear to derive from any particular art historical tradition although the ideas of Brancusi, Beuys and Hundertwasser, amongst others, were central to his vision. Early on, he rejected Conceptualism, particularly in the way it was practiced at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham, where he completed the early part of his training. An early work, 'Burnt Tower with Creaking Pendulum’ contains most of his essential vocabulary, later expanded and refined. The piece shows items of worn driftwood bound together with rope, spectacularly off centre and asymmetrical.
Stead's work as a furniture maker could not be separated from his ideas as a sculptor. His furniture owed something to Art Nouveau, in particular Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Majorelle and Victor Horta; his training at Glasgow School of Art was influential in this respect.
In his post-graduate year at Glasgow School of Art and in the year following, Stead's early use of abandoned and found materials developed into the use of hardwoods, some imported. Stead later committed to using only native timbers, notably burred elm and other 'imperfect' wood previously considered unfit for anything other than firewood, though now become highly desirable. He was attracted by thrift and by the heightened singularity of these timbers and the challenge of making virtues of their apparent unsuitability for furniture. Stead had begun exploiting the waney edge of the timber before learning of the work of George Nakashima who wrote The Soul of a Tree, a book highly respected by Stead as expressing much of his own feelings and beliefs.
The first volume of his poems (Towers published posthumously in 2000 ) – all written between 1998 and 1999– deal in part with Stead's chosen sculptural medium:wood.