In Gallery 1 we are delighted to present a survey exhibition of the work of Paul de Monchaux, in celebration of the artist’s 90th year. Spanning six decades, this extraordinary body of work charts the development of an artist of rare talent who has been a significant influence on British sculpture over the past 50 years.
As an educator at Goldsmiths College and Camberwell School of Art, where he was Head of Sculpture and Fine Art for nearly twenty years, de Monchaux shaped and guided the path of successive generations of artists working in Britain. At the same time, his dedication to public sculpture saw his work define the form and feel of sites of significant social importance throughout the United Kingdom, including functional sculptures in the heart of cities such as Birmingham and Coventry, as well as memorials, including his 1993 Memorial to Wilfred Owen (Shrewsbury) and his 2007 Memorial to WW2 Slave Workers (Jersey). Major works have also been available to the public in sculpture parks and institutions, such as the Henry Moore Institute and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
De Monchaux’s progression as an artist through this selection of key works is revealed in the changing nature of form and finish, beginning with the weighty and seemingly rough-hewn Bronze Flower (1972). The work bears a certain uncompromising energy and solidity that can be seen as relating to de Monchaux’s immediate forebears: the sculptors of the Herbert Read coined ‘Geometry of Fear’ movement – figures such as Kenneth Armitage, Lynn Chadwick and Eduardo Paolozzi. In the works that follow there is a conscious refining of surface and simplification of form that speaks of the influence of other giants of British sculpture such as Elisabeth Frink, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore (a visiting tutor at the Slade during de Monchaux’s time there in the late 1950s), as well as the long and benevolent shadow of Modernist pioneer Constantin Brâncusi.
By the time that we arrive at the later work it is clear that de Monchaux’s own voice has emerged elegantly and coherently, whilst honouring the influence of several different cultural traditions. The 1994 stone carving Freight to Groove has a certain understated perfection of the simple form that draws on the tradition of Japanese sacred architecture, whilst the columnular steel accumulation Stony Ground (2008) owes much to de Monchaux’s enduring love of Italian classicism (cemented during his years as the Chairman of the Faculty of Sculpture at The British School at Rome). The most recent works – lyrical three dimensional explorations in moulded fluted forms such as Volute V (2016), Mariposa (2021) & Partita (2023) – bring us up to the present moment and demonstrate an artist still at the height of his powers of refinement, invention and expression.
Since 1986, de Monchaux has carried out large-scale public sculpture commissions in London, Cambridge, Birmingham, Norwich, Coventry Shrewsbury, Southampton and St Lawrence, Jersey. He lives and works in London.
Notes on the artist
Paul de Monchaux was born in Montreal in 1934. He spent an itinerant childhood living in Ireland, Australia, North and South America. He studied at The Art Students League in New York (1952-54) before moving to London in 1955 to study at the Slade. He has exhibited extensively and has been included in group shows at the ICA (1960), Camden Arts Centre (1979), Hayward and Serpentine Galleries (1983), Henry Moore Institute (2012).
