The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (80 page)

(1922– ).
Belgian artist, best known as one of the leading exponents of
Kinetic
sculpture. From 1947 he exhibited with the
Jeune Peinture Belge
group and was also active in the
Cobra
group. In 1953, however, he abandoned painting for Kinetic sculpture. His early works could be rotated at will, inviting spectator participation, but from about 1957 he began to incorporate electric motors. The movement was usually very slow and the impression made was humorous and poetic, in contrast to the violent effects of
Tinguely
. Since 1961 he has lived mainly in Paris.

 
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(1909–77).
One of Canada's leading abstract painters, active mainly in his native Toronto. His early work was in the tradition of the
Group of Seven
, but in the early 1950s, inspired by Jock
Macdonald
and by
Borduas's
work, he began to experiment with automatic composition (see
AUTOMATISM
). In 1952 he made the first of what became regular visits to New York. The influence of these brought him, by the mid-1950s, to a type of
Abstract Expressionism
. His later works, however, explore the unaffectedly direct use of colour in a more personal way, as in his most famous painting,
Dazzle Red
(Art Gal. of Ontario, 1965), in which the colour is placed in joyous, broadly brushed bands. Bush worked as a commercial designer for most of his career and did not devote his whole time to painting until 1968, but by the end of his life he had an international reputation.

 
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(
c.
1630–1701).
English sculptor. He fled to the Continent when he was an apprentice, after his master, Thomas Burman (1618–74), forced him to marry a servant he had himself seduced. In Italy Bushnell assimilated much of the
Baroque
style (he probably saw
Bernini's
work in Rome) and executed a monument to Alvise Mocenigo (1663) in S. Lazzaro del Mendicanti, Venice. On his return to England,
c.
1670, he received important commissions including a Sir Thomas Gresham for the Royal Exchange (now in the Old Bailey), and would have received more but for his difficult and unstable temperament (he died insane). Bushnell's work is extremely uneven, but he is an important figure, for he showed untravelled Englishmen for the first time something of the possibilities of Baroque sculpture.

 
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(1846–1933).
British painter who concentrated almost exclusively on military scenes. During her heyday in the 1870s she was one of the most popular and talked-about artists in Britain. Her work appealed to popular patriotic sentiment, but she was also praised by critics such as
Ruskin
, who said she had forced him to admit he had been wrong in believing that ‘no woman could paint’. Lady Butler said ‘I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism’ and, although her pictures often have a glossy, Hollywood quality, they are sincerely felt, and she has been praised for trying to show the experience of the common soldier rather than concentrating—as was then traditional—on the heroic deeds of officers. Her best-known painting is probably
Scotland for Ever!
, showing the charge of the Royal Scots Greys at the Battle of Waterloo (Leeds City Art Gall., 1881).

 
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(1913–81).
British sculptor. He was an architect by training (his work included the clocktower of Slough Town Hall, 1936), and architecture remained his main preoccupation until 1950. In 1953 he suddenly came to prominence on being awarded first prize (£4,500) in the International Competition for a monument to
The Unknown Political Prisoner
(defeating
Calder
,
Gabo
, and
Hepworth
among other established artists). The competition, financed by an anonymous American sponsor and organized by the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
, was intended to promote interest in contemporary sculpture and ‘to commemorate all those unknown men and women who in our times have been deprived of their lives or their liberty in the cause of human freedom’. His design was characterized by harsh, spindly forms, suggesting in his own words ‘an iron cage, a transmuted gallows or guillotine on an outcrop of rock’. The monument was never built (one of the models is in the Tate Gallery), but the competition established Butler's name and he won a high reputation among British sculptors of his generation. He had learned iron-forging when he had worked as a blacksmith during the Second World War (he was a conscientious objector) and his early sculpture is remarkable for the way in which he used his feeling for the material to create sensuous textures. His later work, which was more traditional (and to many critics much less memorable), included some bronze figures of nude girls, realistically painted and with real hair, looking as if they had strayed from the pages of ‘girlie’ magazines. Butler was an articulate writer and radio broadcaster and he vigorously argued the case for modern sculpture. Five lectures he delivered to students at the
Slade
School in 1961 were published in book form the following year as
Creative Development
. He was a widely read man, who numbered leading intellectuals among his friends, and his liberal sympathies were shown by his donation of works to such causes as the campaign against capital punishment.

 
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