Ralph Brown was born in Leeds and is the younger contemporary of the eminent group of Yorkshire sculptors that include Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Kenneth Armitage. He studied at Leeds College of Art, where both Moore and Hepworth attended, and the Royal College of Art where he was taught by Frank Dobson, John Skeaping and Leon Underwood.
Ralph Brown came to national prominence in the late 1950s with his large-scale bronze group Meat Porters, commissioned for Harlow New Town Essex. Sarcophori is one of a number of smaller pieces that Ralph Brown made the same year based on the same theme of men hauling raw meat. Gillian Whiteley describes Meat Porters, which can be attributed to this smaller work:
...based on studies of men working at Smithfield Market. The flayed ox evoked the brutality of the abattoir but the gaping cleft of the beast being hauled apart by the two men also has a sexual charge.
Brown was elected a Royal Academician in 1972 and his work can be found in many prestigious public collections including the Tate Collection, Arts Council of Great Britain, Leeds City Art Gallery and many other public collections in Britain and overseas. Pangolin London is delighted to represent the estate of Ralph Brown