MICHAEL AYRTON (1921 - 1975); SHEPHERD

bronze
Modelled in 1954
88.5 BY 20 BY 32CM

EXHIBITED
(probably) Michael Ayrton, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, September-October 1955

LITERATURE
Peter Cannon-Brookes, Michael Ayrton: An Illustrated Commentary, City Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, 1978, pp. 59 (illustrated), 139

Michael Ayrton was a truly remarkable artist. Novelist, critic and broadcaster, stage designer, painter, printmaker and book illustrator, in the 1960s he developed a formidable three dimensional practice, and has been described as 'the foremost British sculptor in the generation following Henry Moore.' (1)
Following a 1956 visit to Cumae on the Bay of Naples, where the legendary artist, engineer and aviator Daedalus landed after flying from Crete, and a subsequent visit to Knossos, Ayrton became fixated on the Greek myths of Daedalus, Icarus, the Minotaur and the Labyrinth. These powerful stories of human aspiration and human brutality sustained an impressive output of works of art over the ensuing decade, as well as the novel The Maze Maker (1967).
This exceptional group of works, assembled by a dedicated and discriminating Australian collector, covers a wide range of the artist's work, from early Neo-Romantic drawings to a number of significant bronzes and works on paper on the Daedalus/Minotaur theme.
(1) R. Stanley Johnson, Michael Ayrton: The Maze: Bronzes Drawings Etchings 1962-1972, R.S. Johnson International Gallery, Chicago, 1972, p. 5

This work, the artist's 'first attempt at a moderately large sculpture' (1), was developed from a series of drawings begun in 1951, which in turn were based on the celebrated Archaic Greek sculpture the Moschoforos (Calf-bearer)
(1) Peter Cannon-Brookes, Michael Ayrton: An Illustrated Commentary, City Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, 1978, p. 59