Pangolin London
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Publications
  • Video
  • Blog
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • SHOP
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Twitter, opens in a new tab.
Youtube, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Send an email
View on Google Maps
Vimeo, opens in a new tab.
Cart
0 items £
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Twitter, opens in a new tab.
Youtube, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Send an email
View on Google Maps
Vimeo, opens in a new tab.
Menu
  • Current
  • Past

William Tucker RA : Portraits

Past exhibition
13 March - 20 April 2024
  • Works
  • Overview
  • Installation Views
  • Publications
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: William Tucker RA, A Bronze Head #8, 2023

William Tucker RA British, b. 1935

A Bronze Head #8, 2023
Work on Paper
47.8 x 39.5 x 2.8 cm (framed)
18.8 x 15.5 x 1.1 in (framed)
Unique
This work is part of a new series of works on paper by William Tucker – drawings in charcoal, ink and watercolour, inspired by the William Butler Yeats poem ‘A...
Read more
This work is part of a new series of works on paper by William Tucker – drawings in charcoal, ink and watercolour, inspired by the William Butler Yeats poem ‘A Bronze Head’. It’s one of his last poems, written in 1937, at a moment very like the present. It starts:

‘Here at right of the entrance this bronze head
Human, superhuman, a bird’s round eye
Everything else withered and mummy-dead.’

And the poem ends:

‘Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall;
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave,
And wondered what was left for massacre to save.’

Tucker wrote it out on the first page of a new 9 x 12 drawing book and started work on the next page in charcoal, then in watercolour. He then closed the book so that the blank page opposite took the impression of the charcoal and the wet paint and then developed that into another drawing, and continued to do that using ink, chalk, pastel, graphite and other materials, working each one separately some over many sessions, some just a single impression. They’re on the theme of the head – they are heads that face you, but Tucker is not trying to identify an individual, as with the sculptures. It’s more to do with the process - random heads emerge from the materials and the process, as he works. Tucker does them much faster in shorter sessions, but then comes back and reworks them, and sometimes hardly touches them at all. Sometimes he overworks them by trying to define them, rather than simply accepting what has appeared. It’s not a matter of ‘finishing’ them and giving each one a name or a title; just ‘A Bronze Head’ and a number.

Text above taken from interview with Jon Wood and edited.
Close full details

Provenance

From the artist

Exhibitions

William Tucker: Portraits, Pangolin London, 13 March - 20 April 2023
Share
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Previous
|
Next
11 
of  11

Related artist

  • William Tucker RA

    William Tucker RA

Back to Past exhibitions
Gallery OPENING TIMES

Mon - Tue: Open by appointment only
Wed - Sat: 10:00am - 6:00pm

 

OTHER EXHIBITIONS

Friday - Monday 8am - 8pm. Exhibitions on B-1 Mezzanine Level at Kings Place can be subject to events and have restricted access. Please check before you travel.

 

Please note that the gallery is closed on Bank Holidays and between exhibitions.

Kings Place

90 York Way

N1 9AG

gallery@pangolinlondon.com

020 7520 1480

 

Join our mailing list

 

 

Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Twitter, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Accessibility Policy
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Pangolin London
Site by Artlogic

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences
Close

Join our mailing list

Signup

* denotes required fields

We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.