Peach Wheels

Tim Scott b. 1937

T01215 Peach Wheels 1961–62

Not inscribed.
Painted wood and glass, 48 x 54 x 36 (122 x 137.2 x 91.5).
Presented by Alistair McAlpine 1971.
Coll: Anthony Caro 1967.
Exh: New General ion, Whitechapel Art Gallery, March–April 1965 (21, repr. in colour); Whitechapel Art Gallery, March-April 1967 (6, repr. in colour); Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, March–April 1969 (3); The Alistair McAlpine Gift, Tate Gallery, June–August 1971 (25, repr.).
Lit: Anne Seymour, in catalogue of The Alistair McAlpine Gift, 1971, pp. 73–85.

T01215 comprises two pairs of painted wooden wheels separated from each other by a vertical glass sheet. The sculpture is in an edition of three.

The artist told the compiler that ‘Peach Wheels’ is closely related to ‘Round Midnight’ 1961. In ‘Round Midnight’ the two sets of wooden wheels painted blue are the same size, but one set appears larger because it is painted a lighter shade of blue. In ‘Peach Wheels’ the two sets of wheels arc the same colour but of different size. The sets of wheels are arranged on axes at right angles to each other; the outer edge of one of the large wheels runs flush with the edge of the glass sheet and with the edge of one of the smaller wheels. Such an arrangement is intended to strengthen the appearance of the regularity of the forms. The angular precision of the glass sheet should contrast with the flat round swelling forms of the wooden wheels. The artist commented that in making ‘Peach Wheels’ he thought that he had worked out fully the interest in the relation of coloured enclosed forms in space. ‘Peach Wheels’ is for him the most abstract and the most spatial development which emerged from ‘Dulcimer’.

The title ‘Peach Wheels’ was given to the sculpture by the artist’s friends.

Published in The Tate Gallery Report 1970–1972, London 1972.