Object Number: N5483

Collection: Fine Art

Object Name: sculpture

Title: Girl

Artist: BUTLER, Reg

Description: a standing female figure removing her clothes, cast in bronze; Reg Butler worked as a blacksmith during World War II, and used his forging and welding skills in his sculpture after the war; 'Girl' was originally modelled in clay, plaster or wax, and 'shell-cast' a technique Butler pioneered with his wife and assistant Rosemary Young, using a thin coating of bronze on the modelled form; the cast is supported on low metal grids; there were five casts made, all of which are now in museum collections in Britain (British Council, Tate Britain), Europe (The Hague) and the USA (MOMA, New York); the artist stated, 'Girl' is the first full-size "volume" sculpture executed by me since 1948" (1955) and later, "... quite honestly, one of the most exciting things in the world is a girl, and my sculptures rightly or wrongly tend very often to be a celebration of their effect' (1958)