William Turnbull

Butt

1966

© William Turnbull. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2018

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Not on display

Artist: William Turnbull 1922–2012
Medium: Painted steel
Dimensions: Object: 559 x 1845 x 540 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Alistair McAlpine (later Lord McAlpine of West Green) 1970
Reference: T01389

Catalogue entry

William Turnbull b. 1922

T01389 Butt 1966

Not inscribed.
Steel, painted green, 22 x 72¿ x 21¼ (56 x 184.5 x 54).
Presented by Alistair McAlpine 1971.
Exh: The. Alistair McAlpine Gift, Tate Gallery, June–August 1971 (54, repr. in colour).
Lit: Richard Morphet, in catalogue of The Alistair McAlpine Gift, Tate Gallery, 1971, pp. 106–21.

T01389 resulted from laying a unit identical to those used in ‘5 x 1’ (T01390) on its side. With the long U-beam lying at an angle, the sculpture had the romantic connotations of a fallen column in a ruin. The simple expedient of repeating the plate at one end of the beam at the other ‘free’ end, removed the rhetorical element. The more emotionally neutral quality of the suspended regular horizontal brought into stronger unison the interdependent expressive and formal aspects of the work.

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