Anthony Caro
Sculptor Anthony Caro, considered one of his generation's greatest British artists, died last October 24th at the age of 89.
Barely over 20 years old and having finished his engineering studies, Caro decided to become a sculpture student at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Shortly afterwards he had the good fortune of learning the foundations of his craft under Henry Moore, with whom he shared a love for large-format sculpture and unruly materials. Yet his true growth as an artist took place in the United States, alongside David Smith, with whom Caro discovered a fascination for abstract art and for compositions in metal cubes.
After returning to London, Caro established his studio in Camdem Town and worked without interruption for six decades. Gradually, and without ever setting iron aside, he started to incorporate much lighter materials such as bronze, ceramics, and even paper.
A large part of Caro's work has been seen in Spain in a variety of exhibitions. Besides a retrospective of his work organized at IVAM, one of his most famous and representative works, The Last Judgment, was exhibited at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao in September of 2000. This work, first exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1999, is an installation that broke with the exaltation of life that had until then characterized Caro's oeuvre.
Caro, a former student at Cambridge University's Christ's College, received numerous awards and honors for his work. The most important recognition he received was the Jack Goldhill Sculpture Prize in 2008, given by Britain's Royal Academy of Arts, which includes a £10,000 monetary award. He received it for his sculpture Promenade, currently on exhibit at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield, in northwestern England.
Caro's last exhibition in Spain took place in 2011 at the Álvaro Alcázar gallery in Madrid. There he exhibited eight works using junk fragments, discarded wood, and ceramic cutouts, salvaged materials that in his hands achieved flashes of genius. Last June, London's Gagosian Gallery presented an exhibition with some of his sculptures.
