Sculptural conundrums

2012 is proving something of an annus mirabilis for Anthony Caro OM CBE RA, now 88, with no fewer than three exhibitions of his work on view around the country.  And he continues to beaver away daily in his studio in Camden Town, London, with the strength of a man much younger than himself, one who has been manhandling heavy, often intractable materials throughout the course of his creative life.

We know him best for his great steel constructions — 15 of which are currently arranged around Chatsworth’s Canal Pond in its first show dedicated to a single artist — but a few years ago I was delighted by the discovery of his intricate, poetic constructions in paper, and by the boldness of his great narrative cycle on the subject of the Creation for the Gothic church of St-Jean-Baptiste at Bourbourg in northern France.

To complement the sheer bravura of the current Chatsworth show, Caro is showing a series of almost surreal smaller works made recently in painted fibreglass at the New Art Centre, Roche Court, and — as if that were not enough — nine fascinating small bronzes from his ‘House’ series at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, pieces that effortlessly dissolve the line between engineering and architecture in their multiple allusions to both.

For some years Chatsworth’s grounds have played host to temporary exhibitions of monumental sculpture from Sotheby’s, and this summer the Duke of Devonshire’s intention to make Chatsworth a year-round gallery for modern and contemporary art, inside and out, has come closer to fruition with this solo show of works by Caro, acknowledging his status as grand old man of British sculpture. The works, chosen from the past five decades of Caro’s career, hold their ground — literally — amidst the grandeur of their surroundings, forceful emanations of energy in painted or weathered steel, hugging the grassy banks against the imposing presence of the Peaks beyond.