- Home » Exhibition » EXHIBITION: Bridget McCrum ‘A Life in the Making’
17 June – 31 July 2023
This exhibition offers a retrospective view of the past three decades of Bridget McCrum’s practice with sculpture and drawing on display dating from 1995 through to new work, shown for the first time. It offers the opportunity to see early works which have not previously been exhibited while tracing the progression in her approach towards increased lyrical abstraction – a reduction of means to the essence of her subject.
McCrum’s practice is a potent fusion of the ancient with the modern. She works primarily in stone, from which plaster versions are made offering a start point to create new work which is then cast in bronze. Initially influenced by archaeological finds and by the work of Brancusi, Hepworth and Moore, her sculpture also contains oblique references to the landscape and fauna around her homes in both Devon and Gozo. The basis of her work is a lyrical abstraction of living forms, a process after which only the primary elements of her animals and birds remain identifiable.
McCrum was a childhood friend and associate of Elisabeth Frink, one of the most notable sculptors of the last century and whose Woodland Studio is now housed with Messums Wiltshire. Frink and McCrum share in their preoccupation with animal form and particularly, the bird form which similarly dominated Frink’s practice for two decades. In McCrums’s work, the rhythmic sweeping arcs and curves of the bird form whether depicted motionless or in flight, are reflected in both two-dimensional works on paper and in her three-dimensional bronze and marble forms.
“There is the simplified form that allows the eye to comprehend the piece as a single coherent whole, like a passage in a Bach Cello Suite. Less is more, no fuss. Balance is all. A sweeping line fades and then reappears as you move around the piece, invoking the optical effects the artist experienced among the dunes of the Arabian deserts. And with this comes a sense of rhythm and dynamism, of an object in motion, as light and shadow and perspective generate a kinetic energy. Such things are in the DNA of a Bridget McCrum sculpture or painting or drawing.”
Will Gompertz – Bridget McCrum, 2021
Bronze
h70m x w150cm x d55cm
Edition 3 of 4
2017
Carrara marble and Kilkenny limestone
h61cm x w56cm x d24cm
2015
Bronze
h70cm x w70cm x d20cm
Edition 2/9
Bronze
h41.5cm x w46.5cm x d50cm
Edition 3/9
Bronze
h50cm x w117cm x d14cm
Edition 1 of 9
Bronze
h40cm x w44cm x d22cm
Edition 1 of 9
2023
Bronze
h33cm x w40cm x d28cm
Edition 1 of 9
Bronze
h60cm x w30cm x d24cm
Edition 2 of 9
Bronze
h39cm x w15cm x d10cm
Edition of 9
Bronze
h62cm x w19cm x d7cm
Edition 7 of 9
Bronze
h88cm x w37cm x d6cm
Edition 8 of 9
2016
Kilkenny limestone
h34cm x w24cm x d20cm
Bronze
h22cm x w16cm x d8cm
Edition 3 of 12
Bronze
h33cm x w27cm x d8cm
Edition 2 of 6
Bronze
h20cm x w24cm x d8cm
Edition 3 of 6
1998
Bronze
h13cm x w15cm x d43cm
Edition 7 of 9
2023
Bronze
h16cm x w37.5cm x d20cm
Edition 4 of 9
Bronze
h24cm x w42cm x d16.5cm
Edition 3 of 9
2009
Bronze
h18cm x w36cm x d38cm
Edition 9/9
2012
Bronze
h21cm x w19cm x d8cm
Edition 5 of 9
Slate and Bronze
h40cm x w60cm
Unique
Carrara Marble
h40cm x w78cm x d8cm
Bronze
h210cm x w210cm x d31cms
Edition 3/6
Kilkenny and Carrara marble
h203cm x w64cm x d25cm
Bronze
h218cm x w95cm x d22cm
Edition 5/9
2016
Bronze
h280cm x w46cm x d18cms
Edition 4/6
Bronze
h134cm x w94cm x d40cm
Edition of 9
Bronze
h90cm x w110cm
Edition of 9
Bronze
h220cm x w60cm x d60cm
Kilkenny Limestone
h214cm x w103cm x d95cm
2020
Carrara Marble & Kilkenny limestone
h155cm x w59cm x w32cm
2016
Kilkenny limestone
h40cm x w90cm x d31cm
Carrara Marble and Kilkenny Limestone
h150 x w88 x d30cm
2008
Bronze
h145cm x w50cm x d50cm
edition 9 of 9
2014
Carrara marble
h105cm x w51cm x d23cm
Unique
Bronze
Edition 1 of 6
h88 x w40 x d40cm
Carrara Marble
h66cm x w37cm x d37cm
2021
Pen and Ink
h56cm x w76cm
2021
Pen and Ink
h56cm x w76cm
2023
Pen and ink with compressed charcoal on paper
h56cm x w76cm
2021
Pen & Ink
h56cm x w76cm
2021
Pen & Ink
h56cm x w76cm
2021
Pen & Ink
h56cm x w76cm
2023
Pen and ink with compressed charcoal on paper
h76cm x w56cm
2023
Pen and ink with compressed charcoal on paper
h76cm x w56cm
2023
Pen and ink with compressed charcoal on paper
h76cm x w56cm
2023
Pen and ink with compressed charcoal on paper
h46.5cm x w54cm