Phyllida barlow biography
Artist Biography: Phyllida Barlow
1944
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
1960–3
Studied at Chelsea College of Arts.
1963–6
Studied at The Slade School of Fine Art.
1965
Young Contemporaries, included the work Table, Institute of Contemporary Art, London (group exhibition)
1966
Married the artist and writer Fabian Peake. Set up her first studio in London and had a part-time teaching position in sculpture at the West of England College of Art.
1967
Secured a part-time teaching position in sculpture at Chelsea College of Arts.
1971
Sculpture and Drawings, included the works View, Chair and Wardrobe, Camden Arts Centre, London (group exhibition).
Spectrum London, included the work Sofa & floor & drawings, Alexandra Palace, London (group exhibition).
In the 1970s Barlow tested out different methods of working, particularly low-tech construction. She began using discarded materials in bulk to build large scale works. She began to exhibit in a range of different locations rather than traditional gallery spaces.
1972
Sculpture at the University of Surrey, All and Everything, University of Surrey (group exhibition).
1973
Birth of daughter Florence Peake.
1974
British Sculptors, Attitudes to Drawing, Sunderland Arts Centre (group exhibition).
1975
Birth of daughter Clover Peake.
Drawings, Gallery 21, London (group exhibition).
1976
Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, included the work Shedmesh, Camden Arts Centre, London (group exhibition).
1977
Three Sculptors in the Close, included the work Four, Gloucester Cathedral (group exhibition).
1978
Birth of daughter Tabitha Peake.
Left her teaching position at Chelsea College of Arts. Twelve Sculptors at West Surrey, included the work x2, West Surrey School of Art, Surrey (group exhibition).
1979
Sculpture in Action, included the work Stack, South Hill Park, Bracknell (group exhibition) For almost 60 years, British artist Phyllida Barlow took inspiration from her surroundings to create imposing installations that can be at once menacing and playful. She created large-scale yet anti-monumental sculptures from inexpensive, low-grade materials such as cardboard, fabric, plywood, polystyrene, scrim, plaster and cement. These constructions were often painted in industrial or vibrant colors, the seams of their construction left at times visible, revealing the means of their making. Barlow’s restless invented forms stretch the limits of mass, volume and height as they block, straddle and balance precariously. The audience is challenged into a new relationship with the sculptural object, the gallery environment and the world beyond. ‘There’s something about walking around sculpture that has the possibility of being reflective, like walking through a landscape,’ Barlow has said. ‘The largeness of sculpture has that infinite possibility to make one engage beyond just the object itself and into other realms of experience.’ Barlow exhibited extensively across institutions internationally and in 2017 represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. British artist (1944–2023) Dame Phyllida BarlowDBE RA (4 April 1944 – 12 March 2023) was a British visual artist. She studied at Chelsea College of Art (1960–1963) and the Slade School of Art (1963–1966). She joined the staff of the Slade in the late 1960s and taught there for more than forty years. She retired from academia in 2009 and in turn became an emerita professor of fine art. She had an important influence on younger generations of artists; at the Slade her students included Rachel Whiteread and Ángela de la Cruz. In 2017 she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale. Although born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in 1944 (as her psychiatrist father Erasmus Darwin Barlow, a great-grandson of Charles Darwin, was stationed there at the time), Barlow was brought up in a London recovering from the Second World War. She studied at Chelsea College of Art (1960–63) under the tutelage of George Fullard who was to influence Barlow's perception of what sculpture can be. "Fullard, among others, was able to impart that the act of making was in itself an adventure. The family moved to Richmond, west London, after the war, and her childhood experiences of bomb damage would inspire much of her lifelong work. A sculpture that falls over or breaks is just as exciting as one that reveals itself perfectly formed. All the acts of making in the world are there to be plundered and contain within themselves the potential to be transferred to the studio and adapted." Whilst studying at Chelsea, Barlow met her husband, the artist and writer Fabian Benedict Peake, the son of Mervyn Peake, author of Gormenghast, and his wife the artist and memoirist Maeve Gilmore. She later attended the Slade School of Fine Art from 1963 to 1966 to further study sculpture. Described by The Independent as "a British art dynasty", Barlow and he .Phyllida Barlow
Phyllida Barlow
Early life and education