Geoffrey Clarke RA (1924 – 2014) attracted attention in Venice, in 1952, when he was one of eight sculptors in the British Pavilion (Adams, Butler, Chadwick, Meadows, Moore, Paolozzi and Turnbull were the others). The exhibition had been commissioned by Herbert Read for the British Council and in the accompanying catalogue, Read used his expression ‘The Geometry of Fear’ for the first time, to characterise the sculptors’ work.

Geoffrey Clarke had been in his first year at the Royal College of Art when the principal, Robin Darwin, spotted a window panel which Clarke was working on. Clarke won a silver medal for this, uniquely for a first-year student, and Darwin put his name forward for Basil Spence’s project to rebuild Coventry Cathedral. Multiple commissions followed, both sculptural and for stained glass in the cathedral.

Bird (n.d.) is from that Geometry of Fear period, with its spiky, nervous spindles. The animal is all angled metal, though poise and balance are its preeminent features. In its execution, Bird exemplifies what is distinctive about Geoffrey Clarke’s approach to sculpture. Eschewing bronze casting, which his contemporaries in Venice went on to practice, Clarke remained wedded to the hand-fashioned, almost craft-like dedication to controlling every piece of his sculptural compositions.