Anthony Hatwell

About the artist

“I construct a metaphor for an object from the visible world, creating forms which will articulate the space through plane and form relationships, implied movements and spatial directions.

“I wish a tension to exist between the polarities of the humanistic subject and the spatial structure, fused into one elemental image which bestrides the perceived external world and the internal world of the imagination.”

Anthony Hatwell, March 1982

Anthony Hatwell (1931-2013) studied art under David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic, now London South Bank University. Bomberg’s teaching was said to have imposed strict restraints for painting, and so Hatwell found freedom in creating his own style in sculpture, avoiding superfluous detail or decorative features.

Hatwell developed alongside artists such as Lucien Freud and Leon Kossoff. In 1953 he took part in the Young Contemporaries show for the first time in London. He was a contemporary of William Turnbull and Eduardo Paolozzi, and exhibited with them at Thirty Queen Street, Kings Lynn.

At a similar time he was becoming part of the ‘London Group’, beginning to exhibit with them in 1952. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world, and was created to offer exhibiting opportunities to artists beyond the Royal Academy of Arts. Hatwell was President of the London Group from 1961-63.

From here, Hatwell moved to Edinburgh to pursue a career in teaching. He held the role of Head of Sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art from 1969-90. During this time he helped to bring modernism into the teaching at the college.

Hatwell continued to produce sculpture during his time in Scotland and exhibited in many group shows. It was not until 2013, at the age of 82, that Hatwell had his first solo exhibition, held at the Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh.

What’s in the collection?

As well as papers, correspondence, publicity materials, photographs, and two workbooks, the archive also holds Hatwell’s modelling tools and mallet.

There are also several Hatwell works in the Leeds Sculpture collection, including the sculpture Head 1982. Hatwell is also in many British collections, particularly in Scotland where his work resides in institutions such as the University of Dundee, the University of Stirling, and the City Art Centre, Edinburgh.

Related exhibitions