Room 9: Architecture and imagination: 1986-1991 Installation shot at Tate (forefront of image) Night & Dreams (1990-91) (top) Xanadu (1986-8) (right) Elephant Palace (1989) Enlarge image   Elephant Palace 1989 © The artist, Barford Sculptures Ltd.

Since the mid-1980s Caro has developed a dialogue between sculpture and architecture. His first visit to Greece in 1985 focused his appreciation of the relation of sensual anthropomorphic forms and strict architectural shapes.

Elephant Palace 1989, a work in welded bronze, demonstrates Caro's interest in marrying organic forms with references to architecture. Xanadu 1986-8, was inspired by the pedimental sculpture of Greek temples. The soft, buckled steel echoes the 'sensual rolling forms and figures contained and even forced into strict architectural shapes'. His involvement with architecture also fostered an interest in interior space. In Night and Dreams 1990-1 the principal interest lies within - in its inner recessed spaces and labyrinthine forms.

Alongside the inspiration drawn from architecture, Caro has used particular paintings as points of departure. Descent from the Cross (After Rembrandt) 1989-90 is a response to Rembrandt's soft, voluptuous shapes passing over and down an underlying geometric structure.

"Elephant Palace marks a real change in his work because it presents a skin. We see the outside only."

Ian Barker, Quest for the New Sculpture, 2004, page 286.

Xanadu 1986-8 Tate. Lent by a Private Collector 1994 © The artist, Barford Sculptures Ltd. Photography: John Riddy