Skip to Main Content

Throwback Thursday: A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965

February 16, 2017

Installation view of A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965 (February 13–April 10, 1988) in the Sculpture Court. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.

A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965 (February 13–April 10, 1988) focused on six artists whose works expressed the evolution of British sculpture from 1965 to the mid-1980s: Richard Long, David Nash, and Barry Flanagan represented the generation of sculptors who emerged in the 1970s within the context of Conceptual and Earth Art, while Richard Deacon, Tony Cragg, and Bill Woodrow represented the next generation of artists who emphasize imagery and social commentary and who began to receive critical attention in the 1970s and early 1980s. The work of these six artists share an open and eclectic attitude toward material and an approach to composition that emphasizes process and leaves components in recognizable form.

The exhibition was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It also traveled to the Newport Harbor Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden before it was installed at the Albright-Knox by Director Douglas G. Schultz for its final stop.

It opened with a Members’ Preview on February 12, 1988, during which Tony Billoni from Buffalo’s Jam Club played British music from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Installation view of A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965 (February 13–April 10, 1988). Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.

Artist David Nash (left) and Albright-Knox Curator Michael Auping (right) with one of Nash's works in A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965 (February 13–April 10, 1988). Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.

Installation view of A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965 (February 13–April 10, 1988) featuring Richard Deacon's Listening to Reason, 1986 (Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, and Lisson Gallery, London). Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.

Members view a work by Richard Long at the Members' Preview for A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965. Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives, Buffalo, New York.