Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 10 : Record of press coverage, March 1982 - May 1984

, ... - Th e Leader 5 February 19 84 'A IYtical and elegant work' Now on display at the Queensland Art Gallery is a recently purchased work by an ar– tist who has been called "the best sculptor Australia has ever had". The acquisition is Metal Sculpture by Robert Klippel, considered to be the sculptor's master work and regarded by the Gallery as the most important 20th-century work ac– quired for its Australian sculpture collection. Robert Klippel was born in Sydney in 1920. ~ early experiments in wood and metal con– structions were interrupted by World War II, during which he served as a gunner in the RAN. After post-war studies in London and ! 8 months in Paris where he met the surrealist writer Andre Breton, Klippel worked and ta'!iht for several years in the United States. .-··· .ttji ~bitions following his return to ·,t!A~li'-ih l963 showed him making exten- ' sive use or small. precision-made element~ such as pieces from typcwritcrs and adding machines. Unlike many sculptors working with junk metal, however, Klippel is concerned with not so much making metaphors with his materials as with creating abstract metallic construc– tions that are lyrical and elegant. As the artist himself says or his assemblages: "I just sec them as shapes - I forget the iden– tity of the material I am working in". Metal Sculpture is constructed ·entirely of machine parts - steel rods, rachets, typewriter tapets, pistons, cylinders and cog wheels. It measures 198 x 145 x 162 cm and, as our illustration suggests, has three major arins which reach up with the effortless str~pgth and grace or a plant seeking the sun . •The work was assembled by the artist over a period of four years between 1965 and 1968 .....:.cabout the time when the farnolls art critic RoPiert Hughes declared that Klippcl's work would be noticed in an international context. Metal Sculpture was once described by the late Laurie Thoma~ as "not only . . . Klippel's perSonal masterpiece, but one of the timeles, works of art tu come out of the present da y. "It is made up or a thousand bits and piece,. the type of work that has been ca lled junk sculpture because it makes use of abandoned par·ts and rusty discards. "They are pieced together with the utmost refinement . .. as though they were a com pligi!~/fline drawing made into steel. Al'liough the object itself necessarily renem ,much ·or the merciless jangle of a new in· dustrial era, its formal purit y and what it ex· preisesofthe artist's dream belong 10 no age ." :' ._l, . ' I Metal Srn/p ·•·