My Favorite Sculptor

Richard Deacon is my favorite sculptor. His early works were riveted sheet metal doodles that twist and turn like mystical air conditioning ducts. Form is what is amazing and surprising. His wooden works speak the quiet language of driftwood and the withered forest, but do not look like coffee tables. This sculpture is not based on abstract predecessors of the 50's, yet not realistic. His rivets of his works in metal are elegant, reminding one of a Victorian Martian spacecraft, though his pieces are probably most related to music. Many works combine man-made with natural materials as musical instruments do. The work shown here is from "Art for Other People" a very different series for Deacon. Looking at a Deacon work is like sipping a very good French onion soup (in France they call it onion soup - soup a l'onion). He lives in London, but teaches at the Beaux-Arts where Julia Morgan was the first woman to graduate in architecture. There is something very English about his pieces.