Philip Trust Collection (Private, UK)

ADAGIO HEIGHT 3FT (1M) POLISHED BRONZE 1980

As you will learn from my HISTORY, the first ten years of my sculpting career were spent doing Figurative Works. To earn my living I specialised in sculpting life-size children in clay, and having them cast in bronze. Although I love children and capturing their likenesses and activities, after doing over 100 commissions the subject matter was no longer stimulating me artistically. I was now 45 years old, and subconsciously I was looking for a new form in which to express all the things that I had learnt of `life', something unique to myself.

I have always been interested in the prehistory of Modern Man, especially the art, and its use of Symbols. One evening, after listening to Mozart's Third Violin Concerto, I was sitting in the dark, thinking about the commencement of the Adagio movement. The solo violin theme grows and swells into a beautiful phrase. A sculpture, which for me captured that theme, appeared in my mind's eye, as a Symbol. Next day I made the sculpture ADAGIO in plaster. The experience was as exciting and intense as any feeling I have had in my life.

This was how my first SYMBOLIC SCULPTURE was born. The experience was so exhilarating that I started to look for other values of `life' that could be expressed symbolically. I found that I had opened a flood gate and over the last 15 years I have been blessed with a stream of images, many of which are represented in these pages. ADAGIO as my first baby, has a special place in my heart.