One for Bristol

In the 1960s, John Hoskin embraced a radical new style of sculpture, inspired by Anthony Caro and the so-called New Generation of younger British sculptors. This phrase was coined after the 1965 exhibition, The New Generation at the Whitechapel Art Gallery that focused specifically on emerging forms of sculpture.

Caro became influential as a teacher at St Martin’s School of Art, shifting British sculpture out of post-war monochrome and towards a new use of colour and materials more associated with industry than art. One for Bristol is one of a small group of works by Hoskin, dating from 1967-8, that clearly express these new tendencies.

Made of painted steel and aluminium, fabricated using constructed methods rather than forging or casting, the title, One for Bristol, is a light-hearted reference to location of the first exhibition where the sculpture was seen. This was a group show called New British Sculpture, at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol. Interestingly, the sculpture was shown in the gallery, but it was subsequently decided the work could also be shown outside. In 1990, shortly after the artist’s death, the sculpture was donated to the University and located on campus, where it resides today. The sculpture now forms part of the Sainsbury Centre campus Sculpture Park.

John Hoskin (1922-1990) was born in Cheltenham, England and initially trained as an architect’s draughtsman before serving in the Royal Engineers in the Second World War. After the war, with encouragement from Terry Frost, he became an artist. He then worked as an assistant to the sculptor, Lynn Chadwick. Hoskin’s work of the 1950s is typically expressed in bronze, forged or welded metal and wire, and is closely aligned to the style referred to as the ‘Geometry of Fear’ by the critic Herbert Read, of which Chadwick was a leading exponent.

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