Leon Underwood
Encyclopedia
Leon Underwood "The precursor of modern sculpture in Britain" was a noted British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, draughtsman
Draughtsman
A draughtsman or draftsman , is a person skilled in drawing, either:*drawing for artistic purposes, or*technical drawing for practical purposes such as architecture or engineering...

 and engraver as well as a writer and illustrator, scholar, teacher, philosopher and stained glass and furniture craftsman. He attended the Slade School of Art and founded the magazine The Island in 1931. His work was influenced by African and Cycladic
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...

 designs.

His most dynamic and renowned output are his sculptures cast in bronze, carvings in marble, stone and wood and his drawings.

The body of his lifetime´s work however displays an immense range of mediums and activities and an expressive and technical mastery in what was at the time a ground breaking approach. His paintings included portraits and Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 landscapes resulting from his youthful travels there.

Amongst his many writings he produced several books on ancient African sculpture including a study of the Ife
Ife
Ife is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. Evidence of inhabitation at the site has been discovered to date back to roughly 560 BC...

 and Benin
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

 heads "Bronzes of West Africa" which expose not only his unusual apreciation of their artistic significance but also his profound understanding of the relationship of these pieces to the underlying culture and technology from which they originated. His access to the cave paintings of Altamira
Altamira
-Places:*Cave of Altamira, a cave in Cantabria, Spain famous for its paintings and carving*Altamira, Brazil, a city in the state of Pará*Altamira, Huila, a town and municipality in Colombia*Altamira, Puerto Plata, a town in the Dominican Republic...

 in Spain ignited his "New Philosophy" with regard to this interelationship of the expressiveness and technology of primitive art.

He was a friend of Ralph Chubb
Ralph Chubb
Ralph Nicholas Chubb was an English poet, printer, and artist. Heavily influenced by Whitman, Blake, and the Romantics, his work was the creation of a highly intricate personal mythology, one that was anti-materialist and sexually revolutionary.-Life:Ralph Chubb was born in Harpenden, Hertfordshire...

 with whom he sometimes collaborated and exhibited. One of his students was Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....

 who later spoke of his indebtedness to the teaching of Underwood. Underwood however was always convinced that subject matter formed a fundamental role behind the power of both his own and primitive art and had no belief in subject-less or purely abstract form in his own work.

He set up the Brook Green School, Hammersmith, London in the studio where he personally cast his bronzes, sculpted his carvings and propagated his ideas about primitive sculpture as "...forms created by inspired belief...". The art historian John Rothenstein
John Rothenstein
Sir John Knewstub Maurice Rothenstein CBE was an English art historian. He grew up in London the son of Sir William Rothenstein. The family was loosely connected to the Bloomsbury Set. John Rothenstein studied at Oxford University and became friends with T. E. Lawrence...

 wrote of him in an introduction to a retrospective exhibition of his bronzes at The Minories, Colchester in 1969 "...the most versatile artist at work in Britain today..." but added a quotation of the artist: "The ravens fed me". He never sought fame or even an exhibition yet public collections holding works by Leon Underwood include The Tate, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

, London; the Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...

, Oxford; the National Museum Cardiff
National Museum Cardiff
National Museum Cardiff is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales...

, and the British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...

Art Collection, London.

Underwood was married to Mary Colman. They had two sons, Garth and John, and one daughter, Jean.

Sources

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