- Artist
- Reg Butler 1913–1981
- Medium
- Iron
- Dimensions
- Object and base: 220 × 108 × 99 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Transferred from the Victoria & Albert Museum 1983
- Reference
- T03711
Catalogue entry
Reg Butler 1913-1981
T03711 Crouching Woman
1948
Forged and welded iron 189 x 86 x 63 (7 1/2 x 3 3/8 x 2 1/2) on original tile base 11 x 107 x 100 (3/8 x 4 1/8 x 3 7/8)
Not inscribed
Purchased from Adrian Heath by the Victoria & Albert Museum 1954 (CIRC.98-1954); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1983
Prov: Hanover Gallery; bt by Adrian Heath 1949
Exh: Sculptures in Iron by Reg Butler, Hanover Gallery, July-Aug. 1949 (19); travelling exhibitions of the Department of Circulation, Victoria & Albert Museum.
This sculpture is number 11A in the artist's record books (collection of Mrs Butler) and it was made in the first year that he used the technique of forged iron. He then lived at Hatfield and had a forge in his studio. The tile which the sculpture stands on was also made by Butler, who had worked as a designer for the London Brick Company in the 1930s and was able to use their materials and kilns at their factory near Peterborough.
Sculpture 11B in the record books was also made in 1948, probably soon after this, and is precisely the same but twice the size. Roland Penrose lent this larger sculpture to the 1949 exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, and described in his autobiography (Roland Penrose, Scrap Book 1900-1981, 1981, p.281 and repr. p.166) his first sight of Butler's work, when David Sylvester brought to his house a collection of his small iron figures. It is possible that Penrose then asked for a sculpture twice the size of the ‘Crouching Woman', since no other such pairs are listed in the record books for these years.
The horizontal ‘eye' of the sculpture was missing when it was acquired by the Tate Gallery, and was replaced in 1987 by Mrs Butler, although the original photograph of the sculpture that would have shown it is not in the record books.
Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1984-86: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84, Tate Gallery, London 1988, p.501
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