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Sculpture

Michael Sandle RA

Born in Weymouth, Michael Sandle studied art at Douglas School of Art on the Isle of Man, and then at the Slade, and the Royal College of Art. He worked in Paris between 1959-60 before taking up a teaching post at Leicester College of Art. After several years teaching in Canada he was appointed Professor of Sculpture at Pforzheim in 1973, and then in 1980 he taught at the Academie der Bildenden Kunste in Karlshue. He participated in many influential group exhibitions both in the UK and abroad.His first solo exhibition was held at the Drian Gallery in 1963. Later solo shows were held in Germany and in England. A major retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1988, which toured to Germany the following year.

Mortality and war are key themes in his work and major large scale commissions include The Malta Siege Bell (Valetta Harbour), Memorial for the Victims of a Helicopter Disaster (Mannheim), and the Seafarers Memorial (London). His work can be found in numerous public collections including The Tate, The Imperial War Museum and The Arts Council Collection.

In the 2007 Royal Academy Summer exhibition he was awarded the Hugh Casson Drawing Prize for his controversial 'Iraq Triptych' portraying a naked Tony and Cherie Blair being expelled from Downing Street.

"It is my misfortune to see art (read Life) as a conflict, as an enervating struggle against mediocrity: in the first instance my own. We do, however, live in times of stupendous, quite heroic mediocrity. It is more than depressing to see the visual arts contaminated with the 'New Spirit' of cynicism, or, what is even worse,through benign 'democratic' agencies,being turned into a meaningless pap"

Michael Sandle 2007

Study for Mickey Mouse Memorial   
Pencil, watercolour and graphite, 1977  
98 x 148cm

Study for Mickey Mouse Monument
Ink on paper
75 x 108cm
Signed and dated Sept10th '72

Gun Barrel Assembly
Ink on paper
61 x 91cm
Signed top right March 19th 72

Orwell Memorial            
Ink on paper, 1983   
50 x 63cm

Submarine - Torpedo
Gouache and ink on paper
44.5 x 52cm
Signed and dated '73

Submarine in Glass Cases
Watercolour and gouache on paper
56 x 106cm
Signed and dated bottom left 1973

Burning Memorial            
Ink on paper, 1984  
70 x 103cm  

Calling, Lord Haw Haw Remembered  Etching & Aquatint, 1976
Edition of 55
Plate size 45 x 60cm

Falangist Endgame             
Etching & aquatint
Edition of 56  
Plate size 45 x 61cm

Artillery Bunker  
Etching and Aquatint, 1976
Edition of 60
Plate size 44 x 60cm

Rock Monument   
Etching and aquatint, 1976
Edition of 60 
Plate size 42 x 53cm

Submarine Monument - Sunken Version   Etching & Aquatint, 1976
Edition of 35   
Plate size 41.5 x 56cm