Anthony Hill

This mixed media work by was created when Constructivist Anthony Hill was twenty years of age, during his studies at London’s Central School of Arts. While it appears markedly different to the artist’s meticulously mathematical constructions for which he is known, it forms part of a small series that marked a pivotal time in the young artist’s developing practice.

Throughout the 1950s Hill began to employ Cubist and Dadaist influences into his artwork, exploring the balance and composition of geometry in a playful and experimental manner. Combining both collage and found objects with drawn shapes, Hill sought to challenge traditional art methods, and in doing so, identified an important link between his own practice and the work of Marcel Duchamp. The shapes seen within Untitled are further reflected in Hill’s transitory geometric painting and print work, including the 1951 work, Jeux. The title once again recalls the influences of French art and Surrealist motifs on Hill, as he toys with the boundaries of what art can be and questions the concept of control and chance in the creation of new works. The use of alternative materials carried into Hill’s systems-based artwork from the mid-1950s where alongside Mary and Kenneth Martin, he became a recognised leader of the Constructivist movement.

Despite this transition to mathematical relief works, the influence from Duchamp and Dadaism remained. Hill owned an edition of Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Green Box), 1934 which he later sold to the Victoria & Albert Museum, and he continued to exhibit separate dada-inspired collages and assemblages under the alias Achill Redo, or Redo through the 1970s and 80s.