- Artist
- Ceri Richards 1903–1971
- Medium
- Painted wood, strip brass and brass ornaments
- Dimensions
- Object: 1600 × 1168 × 89 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1959
- Reference
- T00307
Catalogue entry
T00307 TWO FEMALES 1937–8
Inscr. ‘Ceri Richards 37’ b.r. and ‘Ceri Richards 26 St Peter's Square, Hammersmith W. 6 “Two Females” 1937–38’ on the back.
Painted wooden relief construction with strip brass and two brass ornaments nailed on, 63×46×3 3/4 (160×117×9).
Purchased from the artist (Knapping Fund) 1959.
Exh: London Group, November–December 1938 (166), as ‘Two Females’; Arts Council Scottish Committee, Ten English Painters 1925–55, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, January–February 1956 (48).
Lit: David Thompson, Ceri Richards, 1963, n.p., repr.
Repr: London Bulletin, 8–9, 1939, n.p.; Sir John Rothenstein, British Art since 1900, 1962, pl.140.
The artist has explained that this is an interpretation of two contrasting concepts of the female form; the one virginal, the other productive or proliferating which represents the ‘vegetable’ or sexual aspect. This work is the last but one of a series of twelve surviving reliefs the earliest of which were begun in 1934. The discrepancy between the dates is explained by the artist having abandoned T00307 in 1937 for a short while, only completing it the following year. Hans Arp was brought to visit the artist in 1937 and admired these reliefs (letter of 31 December 1959).
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II
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