William Tucker RA is an internationally celebrated sculptor whose work is held in institutions such as Tate Britain, London, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York.
He began his artistic training in 1955, taking classes at the Ruskin School of Drawing while studying history at Oxford University. In 1958 Tucker joined St Martin's Schools of Art under the tutelage of Anthony Caro and Frank Martin. Here he studied alongside artists such as Phillip King, David Annesley, Michael Bolus, Tim Scott and Isaac Witkin, all who would be featured in the pivotal New Generation exhibition held at Whitechapel Gallery in 1965. Shortly after he was featured in the critally important Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York, in 1966.
Tucker's career continued on an upward trajectory in the late 1960s and 1970s. He was made a Gregory Fellow at Leeds University in 1968 and gave a series of lectures on artists such as Rodin, Brancusi and Picasso, which he later compiled into a book entitled The Language of Sculpture, published in 1974.
In 1972 Tucker represented Britain at the Venice Biennale alongside painter and printmaker John Walker. By the late 1970s he had moved to America to teach at Columbia University, subsequently deciding to relocate permanently, becoming a citizen in 1985. In 1992 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts.
This exhibition presents work spanning over 60 years, from 1962 to 2023 and shows his development from abstract to figurative sculpture. In addition to the exhibition in Gallery One, six sculptures have also been placed within the parkland of the Sculpture Garden.