India Ross
Associate Specialist
Lot 215AR
Robert Adams(British, 1917-1984)Descending Forms
Ending from 26 November 2025, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, Knightsbridge£2,000 - £3,000
Ask about this lot
Catherine King
Senior Specialist
Robert Adams (British, 1917-1984)
Descending Forms
bronze relief on wooden mount
29 x 13cm (11 7/16 x 5 1/8in).
Conceived in 1954, from an edition of 6
bronze relief on wooden mount
29 x 13cm (11 7/16 x 5 1/8in).
Conceived in 1954, from an edition of 6
Footnotes
Provenance
With Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, where acquired by
Basil Taylor, February 1958
Private Collection, U.K.
Exhibited
Dublin, Victor Waddington Gallery, Robert Adams, 12-22 May 1954, no. 21 (another cast)
London, Gimpel Fils Gallery, Robert Adams and William Gear, February 1956, no. 40 (another cast)
Hull, Ferens Art Gallery, Retrospective Exhibition of Sculpture, Paintings and Drawings, 15 April - 7 May 1961, no. 24 (another cast)
Venice, British Pavilion, XXXI Biennale, 1962, unnumbered (another cast)
Northampton, City Art Gallery, Retrospective Exhibition, January-July 1971, no. 10; this exhibition travelled to Sheffield, March-April, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, May, and the Camden Arts Centre, London, June-July (another cast)
Literature
A. Grieve, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, The Henry Moore Foundation, in association with Lund Humphries, Much Hadham and Aldershot, 1992, p. 63 and 170, no. 174, illustrated (another cast)
'The movement starts at the top, with a large, upright block, and progresses in a serpentine descent through the less stable, tumbling, blocks to the smallest at the bottom. But the progression from large to small is not regular and the angles of the blocks and the spaces between them vary so that while some touch, others float as isolated units.' (A. Grieve, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, The Henry Moore Foundation, in association with Lund Humphries, Much Hadham and Aldershot, 1992, p. 61)