Screen Form

The rhythmic arrangement of vertical lines in stacked horizontal rows in this abstract print corresponds with ideas that the sculptor Robert Adams began exploring in the mid-1960s. The composition relates directly to an open screen that Adams designed in 1964, made up of rows of vertical bronzed-steel tubes. The light exposed between the vertical elements of the screen was integral to Adams’s design. This print demonstrates Adams’s ongoing interest in this dynamic linear composition, which also features in one of his sketchbooks from the early 1970s. [1]

This print was part of a portfolio produced in 1973 to support the Penwith Gallery scheme in St Ives, Cornwall. Adams was one of twelve artists who contributed to the portfolio, which includes prints by Alan Davie, Merlyn Evans, Duncan Grant, Barbara Hepworth, Peter Lanyon, Bernard Leach, F E McWilliam, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, John Piper and Michael Rothenstein.

Lisa Newby, August 2022

[1] Alastair Grieve, Robert Adams 1917-1984: A Sculptor’s Record (London: Tate Gallery, 1992) p.54.