Anthea Alley

Spatial Form

1962–3

© estate of Anthea Alley

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Not on display

Artist: Anthea Alley 1927–1993
Medium: Brass
Dimensions: Object: 337 x 279 x 298 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1964
Reference: T00655

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Anthea Alley trained as a painter at St Martins School of Art and the Royal College of Art. She worked in a variety of media but is perhaps best known for her sculpture and reliefs. This is one of a series of sculptures made chiefly from machine stampings. These are the pieces of metal that remain after various standard shapes have been stamped out of the metal by machine. The artist began to work with these left-over pieces of metal in 1962 and used a variety of metals and patterns to obtain effects of transparency and movement in her sculpture. She generally confined herself to one type of stamped out shape for each work. Anthea Alley is represented in a number of public collections.

Gallery label, August 2004

Catalogue entry

Anthea Alley b. 1927

T00655 Spatial Form 1962–63

Not inscribed.
Welded brass, 13¼ x 11 x11¾ (33.5 x 28 x 30).
Purchased from the Hamilton Galleries (Grant-in-Aid) 1964.
Exh: Hamilton Galleries, March-April 1964 (4).
Repr: Studio, CLXX, 1965, p. 90.

This is one of a series of sculptures made mainly from machine stampings, that is to say from the lengths of metal remaining after strips have been fed into a machine which stamps out circular discs, ovals and such-like. Anthea Alley first began to work with these in 1962 and has used a variety of metals and patterns (usually only one kind in each piece) to obtain effects of transparency, space and movement.

Published in The Tate Gallery Report 1964–1965, London 1966.