In 1952, Geoffrey Clarke was selected as one of eight emerging sculptors to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale. Alongside his contemporaries Reg Butler and Lynn Chadwick, Clarke’s work was described by the influential art critic Herbert Read as evoking the ‘geometry of fear’. In this way Clarke’s early works, such as this important museum quality sculpture ‘Figure’, was to be characterised.. With Clarke’s innovative use of forged iron as material ‘Figure’ radically reframed what figurative sculpture could be in what Read consequently termed ‘Britain’s New Iron Age’ (1953).

After graduating from the Royal College of Art and taking the same industrial welding course as Lynn Chadwick at The British Oxygen Company in 1950, Clarke used a variety of media including iron, stained glass, enamel and printmaking techniques to create his instantly recognisable linear images of Man. Later he made a number of important discoveries casting in aluminium from expanded polystyrene which he carved and cast at his home in Suffolk. However, it was his signature iron works of the 50s that best captured his unique visual language and made his name.

In 1965, Clarke had a major solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery, London and his work was included in British Sculpture in the 1960s exhibition at the Tate Gallery. He was selected for ‘British Sculptors ‘72’ curated by Bryan Kneale at the Royal Academy of Arts and for ‘British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century’ at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1981. He was a Royal Academician and his work is held in many prestigious public and private collections around the world.

In 2017, to coincide with a major retrospective held at the gallery, Pangolin London published the artist’s highly anticipated Catalogue Raisonné written by Clarke's biographer, Dr Judith LeGrove.

Pangolin London is proud to represent the estate of Geoffrey Clarke.