Lot 158: JOHN ERNEST 1922-1994

L RELIEF I, 1958

39.5 by 82cm., 15 1/2 by 32 1/4 in.

signed on the reverse

mixed media construction

PROVENANCE

The Artist, until at least 1963

EXHIBITED

New York, American Federation of Arts, British Constructivist Art, October 1961 - October 1962, no.28;
Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, Construction England, April 1963, no.8 ( and toured by the Arts Council to Liverpool, Penarth, Swansea, Middlesborough, Lincoln, Hull, Southampton and Newcastle-upon-Tyne);
Belfast, no.5 (details untraced).

LITERATURE

Alastair Grieve, Constructed Art in England After the Second World War: A Neglected Avant-Garde, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2005, no.272, illustrated, p.199.

NOTE

Born in Philadelphia, Ernest arrived in London in 1951 and enrolled at St.Martin's, thus meeting Kenneth Martin. His early works utilize industrial materials and include a series of towers formed from Perspex and metal rods. Moving to the construction of reliefs, he often enlivens his work with the inclusion of colour and the contrast of natural wood. A gifted teacher, Ernest also spent a good deal of time producing pieces for temporary spaces, and thus his surviving constructivist works are now extremely rare.