Lot 133: Will Maclean (b. 1941)

Will Maclean (b. 1941)
Song for the Solan
signed, inscribed and dated '"SONG FOR THE/SOLAN"/WILL MACLEAN /1977' (on a label attached to the back of the box), signed again and inscribed again 'WILL MACLEAN/SONG FOR THE SOLAN' (on a label attached to the back of the box)
mixed media, wood, metal and bone
22¼ x 11½ in. (56.5 x 29.2 cm.)

A. Woods and C. Runkel, Will Maclean: Sculptures and Box Constructions, 1974 - 1987, London, 1987, no. 22, p. 47.

with Gilbert Parr Gallery, London, where purchased by F. Fletcher Robinson, 1979.

VARIOUS PROPERTIES
Artist's Resale Right ("droit de Suite"). If the Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer also agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
Will Maclean studied at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen (1961-65) and the British School of Rome (1966), before spending some time as a ring-net fisherman in Skye. In 1973 he was commissioned by the Scottish International Education Trust to make a study of the declining Scottish ring-net herring fishing industry. In 1974 he began making box constructions using found objects as metaphors for aspects of Scottish seafaring history. The title of this work refers to the Solan goose, or gannet, which traditionally migrates to the Western Isles of Scotland in the thousands from March to September, and feeds off the herrings.

Maclean is represented in the collections of Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow City Art Galleries, and the Yale Centre for British Art, USA, amongst many others. A retrospective exhibition of his work is currently being held at the Fleming Collection in London, 8th March - 4th June.