35 Facts About Lynn Chadwick

Lynn Chadwick's work is in the collections of MoMA in New York, the Tate in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Accordingly, Lynn Chadwick became a trainee draughtsman, working first at the offices of architects Donald Hamilton and then Eugen Carl Kauffman, and finally for Rodney Thomas.

Lynn Chadwick took great inspiration from Thomas, whose interest in contemporary European architecture and design had a significant effect on his development.

Lynn Chadwick recalled: "What it taught me was how to compose things, a formal exercise in composition, really, it has nothing to do with the building it represents".

Around the same time, Lynn Chadwick was commissioned to make exhibition stands for the Aluminium Development Corporation.

In September 1958, Lynn Chadwick bought Lypiatt Park, a historic manor house in Gloucestershire.

Lynn Chadwick set up a studio in the medieval chapel where he installed the blacksmith's anvil.

Lynn Chadwick made it his project to restore the house and garden.

Jane Drew commissioned Lynn Chadwick to make a large-scale hanging mobile for the tower of her Riverside Restaurant on London's South Bank site, Tower Mobile.

Architect Misha Black then commissioned Lynn Chadwick to make a large fixed sculpture for the garden of the Regatta Restaurant, Stabile, made from copper sheets and brass rods.

Lynn Chadwick felt that this would solve the problem of creating large pieces suitable for public arenas.

In January 1952, Lynn Chadwick was asked to present to the selection committee of the XXVI Venice Biennale, resulting in his being one of eight young British sculptors who were invited to exhibit at the Biennale, including Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Geoffrey Clarke, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull.

Lynn Chadwick described Chadwick's work, in what was to become a long-held interpretation, situating it alongside quotes from T S Eliot's The Waste Land against the backdrop of the Cold War:.

Lynn Chadwick did not go to art school and had no formal training as a sculptor.

Lynn Chadwick built his sculptures using geometric space frames, to which he referred as "drawing in steel rods".

Lynn Chadwick produced sculptures in iron, bronze and steel, which developed from mobiles to insect forms, animal forms and groups of male and female figures.

Lynn Chadwick did not use clay or other modelling materials.

In 1956, Lynn Chadwick was chosen by the British Council as one of the lead sculptors to represent Britain at the XXVIII Venice Biennale.

Lynn Chadwick was awarded the International Sculpture Prize, becoming the surprise winner and surpassing the favourite Alberto Giacometti, as well as Cesar Baldaccini and Germaine Richier, and making him the youngest ever recipient of the prize.

Lynn Chadwick made a maquette, but complaints about the work caused the commission to be dropped.

Lynn Chadwick is featured in the 1964 documentary film 5 British Sculptors by American film maker Warren Forma.

Many of Lynn Chadwick's prints have been on exhibit at Tate Britain, London.

Lynn Chadwick was invited to participate in the Sculpture in the City exhibition at the fourth Festival of Two Worlds at Spoleto, Italy in July 1962, to create a large outdoor sculpture alongside nine other sculptors including David Smith and Alexander Calder.

Lynn Chadwick continued to create abstract human forms; male figures generally had blocky rectangular heads, while females had heads formed of more delicate diamonds or pyramids.

Lynn Chadwick introduced polished facets to his bronze works, which would accentuate some part of the figure's anatomy, such as Three Elektras.

Around 1968, Lynn Chadwick created works that used a matt patina over some of the bronze, but with faces or chests burnished to a high golden sheen, a technique already seen in works of sculptors including Armitage.

Clothed sitting couples began to appear on benches, as Lynn Chadwick began to explore how far he could push his method towards naturalism.

Lynn Chadwick returned to working with steel for the first time since 1962 in 1989.

Lynn Chadwick is said to have delighted in the properties that steel afforded; no matter how dull the weather some facet of the sculptures would catch and reflect the light.

Lynn Chadwick was invited back to the Venice Biennale that same year, for which he created two monumental figures, playfully entitled Back To Venice, 1988.

The next year, in 1992, Lynn Chadwick was given his first British retrospective at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Lynn Chadwick was appointed a Senior Royal Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2001.

Lynn Chadwick died at Lypiatt Park in 2003, the same year in which he was given a major retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain.

Lynn Chadwick is buried in amongst the pine trees near the seat where he used to sit and think, overlooking Toadsmoor Valley.

Lynn Chadwick is survived by his wife Eva and his two sons and two daughters.