Austin Wright (1911- 1997) was born in Chester in 1911 and grew up in Wales, although he spent the majority of his life living in North Yorkshire in a village just outside of York. He initially started his career as a teacher in 1934, instructing Modern Languages at The Downs School in Herefordshire where he lived with his colleague and friend the poet W H Auden. In The Sculpture of Austin Wright, James Hamilton notes that 'Wright unavoidably became a wry observer of Auden's love affairs, and also his confidante', showing how progressive Wright was during a time when homosexuality was still criminalised. During this period Wright was also developing his own artistic practice, with his earliest surviving wood carving dated from 1939 and is a carving of an abstracted figure made from pinewood.
Wright's sculpture became more widely recognised in the 1950s when he was commissioned by institutions such as Manchester City Council, Wakefield Cathedral and Derby Cathedral to create large-scale pieces. The focus of his work was mainly figurative during this decade, focussing on individuals or small groups of people and abstracting the limbs and heads. In 1955 the art historian and critic Charles Sewter wrote in the Manchester Guardian that 'it would not be outrageous to claim that Wright is the most gifted sculptor working in Britain today'. The following year he was asked to participate in the touring British Council show Young British Sculptors alongside Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Robert Clatworthy, Hubert Dalwood, Elizabeth Frink, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi, Leslie Thornton and William Turnbull. He was fascinated not just by the figures but also by the negative space between them and the energy that seemed to hang within the void.
Wright was chosen by a prestigious selection committee to participate in the 1957 Säo Paulo Biennale in Brazil. The committee included some of the most influential curators, critics and writers of the period such as Roland Penrose, Sir Herbert Read, Sir John Rothenstein, and Lilian Somerville. The exhibition was titled Ten Young British Sculptors and featured many of the artists who had appeared in the earlier Young British Sculptors exhibition, with the additions of F. E. McWilliam, Leslie Thornton and Ben Nicholson. It was here that he was presented with the Richardo Xavier da Silveria Acquisition Prize for his sculpture The Argument.
In 1961 Wright was awarded the Gregory Fellowship for a term of three years at the University of Leeds, which caused a shift in his focus from the figurative sculptures he had been producing up to the 1950s to botanical forms. This shift was largely due to his friendship with Professor Irene Manton who he met at the Botany department at the University. Manton not only had a wealth of knowledge about the interior structure of plants, which influenced Wright's work greatly, but she was also a collector of art and antiquities. After her death, Manton donated her collection to the University of Leeds, which included examples from early Egypt, Greece and Cyprus but also of modern art from artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore and Joan Miró. Wright would have no doubt been influenced by the art and antiquities Manton collected as these were displayed throughout Botany House, where she worked while at the university.
His work is held in collections including Tate; Arts Council; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; University of Leeds and University of York. He had major retrospectives at Wakefield, 1960; Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 1974; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 1984; Hull, 1988; and York Art Gallery, 2011.
Willoughby Gerrish Ltd represents the estate of Austin Wright.