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Adolfine Mary Ryland

Adolfine Mary Ryland
Born14 March 1903
Windsor, England
Died1983(1983-00-00) (aged 79–80)
NationalityBritish
Education
Known forSculpture

Adolfine Mary Ryland (14 March 1903 – 1983) was a British artist who worked as a sculptor, painter and printmaker. Across several different media her work often displayed innovative elements of design and also showed her interest in Indian and Eastern forms of sculpture.

Biography

Sculpture panel at the former St Martin's School of Art by Ryland

Ryland was born in Windsor, where her father was a solicitor and where she would settle later in life.[1][2] She studied at the Heatherley School of Fine Art from 1920 to 1925 and then at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art where she was taught linocut and woodcut techniques by Iain Macnab and Claude Flight.[3][4] In 1927 she began exhibiting with the Women's International Art Club, WIAC, which became her main exhibition venue throughout her career.[5][6] In 1936 Ryland became a member of WIAC and remained so for many years until the late 1950s.[1][3] In 1931, she exhibited at the Ward and Albany Galleries and later at both the Wertheim and Bloomsbury Galleries.[7]

During the 1930s, Ryland undertook a number of sculpture commissions and also worked for the London County Council, producing sculptured stonework panels for a number of public buildings.[4][8] These included the School of Butchers building and, possibly her best known work, the panels surrounding the four entrance ways to the former St Martin's School of Art and College of Distributive Trades building on the Charing Cross Road in central London, which has been the Foyles bookshop since 2014.[8] For the School of Art, Ryland produced two sets of sculptured low-relief stone panels, eight showing students and shop workers at work, for example at a sawing machine or unrolling a bolt of fabric, and four portraits of dramatic figures.[8] Ryland worked on the panels from 1937 to 1939 and the following year the Tate acquired her 1933 sculpture panel Isaac Blesses Jacob, which displays her interest in Indian and Eastern forms, for its collection.[8][9]

In 1987 the Michael Parkins Gallery hosted the exhibition Printmakers of the 20s and 30s and Adolfine Ryland which featured her prints and drawings plus two posters, Home from the Office and Out of the fog, into the sunshine which she had produced for London Underground.[8] Ryland sometimes signed her work "Koncelik", which had been her mother's maiden name.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b Grant M. Waters (1975). Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900–1950. Eastbourne Fine Art.
  2. ^ University of Glasgow History of Art / HATII (2011). "Adolfine Mary Koncelik Ryland". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain & Ireland 1851–1951. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  3. ^ a b David Buckman (2006). Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 2, M to Z. Art Dictionaries Ltd. ISBN 0-953260-95-X.
  4. ^ a b Frances Spalding (1990). 20th Century Painters and Sculptors. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-106-6.
  5. ^ Benezit Dictionary of Artists Volume 12 Rouco–Sommer. Editions Grund, Paris. 2006. ISBN 2-7000-3082-6.
  6. ^ James Mackay (1977). The Dictionary of Western Sculptors in Bronze. Antique Collectors' Club.
  7. ^ Alan Windsor (2003). British Sculptors of the Twentieth Century. Routledge.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Alicia Foster (2004). Tate Women Artists. Tate Publishing. ISBN 1-85437-311-0.
  9. ^ "Catalogue entry:Isaac blesses Jacob". Tate. Retrieved 11 April 2019.