A grand day out to visit Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Hepworth Wakefield’s Anthony Caro double whammy, Caro in Yorkshire (until 1 November), where the zingy Technicolor of the great man’s sculptures of the 1960s hits you right between the eyes. (Although to be scrupulously accurate, the real watershed breakthrough piece—his first welded steel abstract work of 1960 Twenty Four Hours—is painted a sombre dark brown…)
From the emerald gloss of The Window (1966-7) and the vivid green and yellow First National (1964) to the the dazzling magenta, orange and green of Month of May (1963) and the iridescent, almost disco-sheen, of his beetle-wing green and blue lacquer table pieces, the sculptor’s works retain their perennial freshness. Apart from Sir A’s formal acuity—frequently enhanced by the excellent advice of Sheila Girling, his painter wife of more than 60 years—the impact of such brilliantly-hued pieces also owes much to the fact that Caro was apparently happy for their vivid, shiny surfaces to be regularly repainted. But of course, in hues carefully matched to their original palette.
I was informed by one of the YSP’s curators that things can become a little trickier with Caro’s former pupil, and then long-term friend, Philip King. The octogenarian artist apparently, even now, is not averse to changing the colour of his painted steel works when it is time for a touch up, much to the consternation of curators and collectors. Good to know that even the most venerable artists still like to mix it up a bit.