The Sculpture Collection
In his day Watts won the nickname of ‘England’s Michelangelo’ due to his virtuosity as a painter, draughtsman and sculptor. His relatively modest sculptural output became very influential among his contemporaries when his only exhibited sculpture, marble Clytie, started in 1867, when Watts was elected a royal Academician, lay the foundations for the New Sculpture Movement. Watts Gallery’s sculpture collection comprises some 200 pieces by Watts as well as the artist’s own collection of anatomical casts used in his studio for reference, alongside a group of sculptural casts after other artists used for inspiration.
Throughout his career, Watts, like other painters of the period, facilitated the completion of his paintings by preparing compositional sketches in wax or clay, often cast in plaster, of figures for his allegorical compositions. The gallery has a group of plaster models for the painting Chaos, as well as the more finished and much larger sculptural maquette for the famous allegorical picture Love and Life. Watts’s earliest known independent sculptural subject Medusa was taken from mythology and modeled in plaster during the artist’s stay in Italy. The Gallery also has the later alabaster version of the subject.
Watts’s two largest sculptural subjects, Lord Alfred Tennyson and Physical Energy were completed during the last thirteen years of the artist’s life in Compton, originally modeled in the coarse plaster medium of gesso grosso since clay gave him rheumatism, and subsequently cast in bronze in 1903 and 1904 and respectively. The original gesso models for these monumental sculptures remain on permanent display in the Sculpture Gallery and are generally considered as highlights of our collection.
Physical Energy, Sculpture & Site by Stephanie Brown
G.F. Watts’ colossal Physical Energy is his most ambitious sculpture, known through the original plaster model at Watts Gallery, Compton and three bronze casts in Cape Town, London and Harare. Stephanie Brown examines the less familiar origins of this iconic work in Watts’ equestrian bronze Hugh Lupus and explores how Physical Energy relates to its three very different locations. The ways in which site influences the meaning of the sculpture is explored in relation to physical features, orientation and presentation and the effects of ideological and cultural change. The continuing interest in Physical Energy, a design originally conceived in 1870, is traced to the present day through its ongoing reproduction in statuettes and its emblematic value as a logo or trademark. Priced £10 Click here to visit the shop
