Anthony Caro - the American influence
Anthony Caro - Month of May - Jack Bush - Brown Pole
From 27 January to 5 March 2022, the Gagosian Gallery presents in London "Caro and the American Painters", an exhibition of sculptures made by the British artist Anthony Caro in the 1960s and 1970s, exhibited alongside contemporary paintings by his American friends.
Source: Gagosian Gallery. Image: Left: Anthony Caro, "Month of May", 1963, painted steel and aluminium, 279.5 × 305 × 358.5 cm © Barford Sculptures Ltd. Right: Jack Bush, "Brown Pole", 1967, acrylic on canvas, 147 × 67.6 cm © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SOCAN, Montréal.
Widely regarded as one of the most important British sculptors of the second half of the 20th century, Anthony Caro (1924-2013) worked as an assistant to Henry Moore (1898-1986) during the 1950s, but it was during a trip to the United States in 1959 that he came into contact with the work of American artists -with special mention of the sculptor David Smith (1906-1965)- and changed his figurative style for abstract compositions, often making use of constructive elements such as beams and plates, perhaps also influenced by his engineering studies at the Christ's College in Cambridge. From a compositional point of view, these works were also influenced by American "Color Field" painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and Kenneth Noland.
As the Gagosian Gallery explains, "Caro would maintain close friendships with vanguard American painters of his generation throughout his career, exchanging ideas and exploring new aesthetic possibilities”. According to Paul Moorhouse, curator of the exhibition, conversations with Noland, Olitski, and other painters had a two-way significance, encouraging all these artists to explore new, radical approaches. This exhibition reveals the ways that—together—they transformed the language of art.”
Coinciding in time with "Caro and the American Painters", the Gagosian Gallery presents in its Paris gallery an exhibition dedicated to one of the artists who influenced Caro's work. "Helen Frankenthaler: Selected Works", on view from 18 January to 12 March, traces three decades of Frankenthaler's artistic career, from monumental canvases from the early 1960s to small works on paper created in the 1990s.

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