Pointing Figure With Child, 1967
Bronze
Polished bronze
Signed with initial & numbered
Conceived in 1967 & cast in an edition of 6


While we detect, if only obliquely, the classic subject of mother and child popularised in the sculpture of Henry Moore, Meadows’ ‘Pointing Figure’ reveals less the influence of Moore than that of the surrealistic Hans Bellmer whose bizarre mannequins and anatomically distorted dolls, or ‘Poupe’, proved disquieting objects. They influenced not only Meadows, but the late work of Reg Butler, Ralph Brown and others.

Fully established in his professorship at the Royal College when ‘Pointing Figure’ was made, Meadows made use of a new foundry on Exhibition Road where an evolving interest in differing bronze finishes, ranging from patina to satin to high polish, introduced new surface effects to counter the antique veneer of earlier, anthropologically influenced work. The bronze polish on ‘Pointing Figure’ gives a warm, golden, reflective glow. The delicate variety of surface texture in his work at this time complemented a growing dichotomy between soft, bulbous organic form and hard, architectural shapes. At the Eastern Counties Newspaper offices, in his native Norwich, Meadow installed in 1970 a sculpture whose bulbous shapes engaged with hard architecture, the sculpture traversing the building.
58.5 x 40.5 x 57.0 cm (23 x 16 x 22½ inches)

Exhibition History:
London, Royal Academy, British Sculptors '72, January - March 1972, no.43 (another cast)

Literature:
Alan Bowness, Bernard Meadows: Sculpture & Drawings, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, London, 1995, no.BM113, p.144, ill pl.71a & 71b.p.89 (another cast)
POA