Lynn Chadwick

b. 1914 in Barnes, UK — d. 2003 in Gloucestershire, UK

Lynn Chadwick’s angular figurative sculptures helped pioneer new approaches to the medium in the mid–20th century. Chadwick broke with traditional methods of carving sculpture from wood or stone, instead welding iron and bronze into expressionistic, geometric figures that he designed on the fly rather than working from premade plans. While his sculptures often depict humanlike or otherwise biomorphic forms, they can also teeter on the edge of abstraction.

Chadwick participated in the 1956 Venice Biennale, where he won the International Sculpture Prize. His work has been exhibited in New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. In 2003, the year the artist died, Tate Britain mounted a major Chadwick retrospective. His sculptures belong in the collections of the Musée Rodin, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Musuem of Art, and the Royal academy of Arts.