The 10 best figurative sculptures in pictures | Culture

 Posted on May 1, 2024  |  7 minutes  |  1301 words  |  Valentine Belue

The 10 best figurative sculptures – in pictures

Ahead of a new exhibition at the Hayward, The Human Factor: the Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, the director of Tate Britain, Penelope Curtis, picks her 10 favourite figurative sculptures

Which sculpture have we missed from the list? Have your say in the comments below and you could feature in the alternative list next week

Penelope Curtis

Fri 23 May 2014 07.00 EDT First published on Fri 23 May 2014 07.00 EDT

  • Sarcophagus from Cerveteri

    Anon, c520BC, Villa Giulia, RomeEtruscan sarcophagi are the most wonderful things, and the best ones are found in the Villa Giulia in Rome. Made in terracotta, some are fully lifesize, and absorb the viewer within their orbit. Beyond the fact that they have survived at all, their combination of passive charm and animated gesture, of still life and portrait, is extraordinary and entrancing. The marriage bed becomes a place of theatre, in which the starring couple engage in a mute and never-ending conversation

  • Ecce Homo

    Mark Wallinger, 1999Close to Rodin's Age of Baroque in its nakedness but also in its scale – both very slightly under lifesize they express a vulnerability rarely seen in the public sphere. Rodin’s figure was never lifted on to a plinth in the way Ecce Homo was - exposed like Christ in the market square before an unsympathetic crowd, offering no more than what he was. Only his golden aura suggests something supernatural. As with Rodin’s Age of Bronze the threshold between the human and the superhuman is very narrow, and gives the work its durability whether it is positioned above or at our height

  • Poet As Orpheus With Two Sirens

    Anon, c300BC, Getty Villa, MalibuI was lucky enough to have a fellowship in Los Angeles, and I found this group, which I had not known before, simply incredible. It is not just that, once again, such friable materials had survived, but also that it has an exceptionally modern quality. The faces look as if they have been cast from life, and the supernatural stillness of the group as a whole, which is both introspective and extrovert, represents something very special to sculpture. All of them might be about to speak, or to sing to us, from across the centuries

  • I morti di Bligny trasalirebbero

    Arturo Martini, 1935, Museo del Novecento, MilanI find almost every sculpture by Martini to be of interest, partly because he uses mythology and storytelling to speak about sculptural qualities. In this unusual piece one can’t tell whether the gravestone is falling or whether the victim is rising. On the grave itself you can read the title phrase which comes from Mussolini and refers to the Italian martyrs of the first world war, suggesting that they would turn in their graves if they heard how the French were criticising his Ethiopian campaign. The fascist version of the dates has been obliterated by a later hand. Martini refused to apologise for taking fascist commissions and took to describing the sculptor as the shoemaker who makes shoes for anyone’s feet

  • Leap into the Void

    Yves Klein, 1960, various locationsSo much figurative sculpture is about weight and death, but this photo, taken in a quiet Parisian suburb in October 1960, defies all that. Though it is carefully staged, it suggests spontaneity and freedom. Despite its simplicity, it has real staying power, and is as seductive now as it ever was. I think we can call it sculpture because it speaks of more than just the image; we imagine ourselves into the body of the artist, overcoming the fear of gravity. It engages our own physicality to create its effect

  • Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab

    Sarah Lucas, 1992Tables do a lot for us, and sculptors quite often use them as a way of getting round the problem of the plinth, or what you put your sculpture on once you’ve made it. Lucas puts everything together, but with a lightness of touch that is deceptively elegant. Table and food, bed and sex, plinth and sculpture are neatly locked in position by means of two fried eggs and a kebab. Lucas may say that she dreamed of this piece in her sleep, but I can’t quite believe such a clever work would happen by chance. But then, sleep is often underestimated. And so is laughter

  • The Age of Bronze

    Auguste Rodin, c1876, various locationsThe Age of Bronze can be found in casts from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, and of course abroad. I like that about casts; it means that the sculpture can live many lives at once, and as long as they’re good casts (and made in the artist’s lifetime) dissemination only adds to its meaning. The Age of Bronze is a key work for me, and I find myself referring to it more and more, as I think about scale, casting, verticality, commemoration and almost anything to do with figurative sculpture. The facts that it was at first entitled The Vanquished, and that Rodin was accused of casting from life, are invitations to additional lines of inquiry

  • Statues in monument to Maximilan I

    1553-1563, Hofkirche, InnsbruckThis extraordinary monument to the Roman emperor Maximilan I, who died over 40 years earlier, was erected by his grandson Emperor Ferdinand I. What is particularly striking is the ensemble of 28 bronze statues along the sides, each of which is over lifesize. This conveys a kind of theatrical effect, combining stage and audience, quite unlike anything I have ever seen. Moreover, the bronze is very black, like iron, so the effect is sobering and even chilling. In a way it is like an array of armour, such as might be familiar from imperial treasuries, but it also suggests the masque, or indeed the funeral procession

  • Duke of Clarence memorial

    Alfred Gilbert, 1892-1928, Albert Memorial Chapel, WindsorGilbert was an exceptionally gifted modeller, combining uncommonly fine detailed work, like that of a jeweller, with grand designs for the framing and setting of his monuments. His spectacular tomb for the eldest son of Edward, Prince of Wales, who had died at the age of 28, can be visited by the public. Gilbert used medieval precedents, but outdid them in his sumptuous and sinuous detail. “Eddy” lies flat on his back on top of the tomb, in his uniform, shielded by an angel and protected from prying eyes by a wealth of metalwork, both figurative and decorative. The whole is a cross between a shrine and a tomb, a casket and a cell: an eclectic combination of many traditions

  • Early One Morning

    Anthony Caro, 1962, Tate BritainI have always loved this sculpture, but I have found it more interesting to think about once I began to see it as being as much figurative as abstract. I am convinced by the proposition that it is a response to Henry Moore’s reclining figures from the same period, which were broken up equally into two or three pieces. In my essay for the forthcoming show at the Hayward Gallery on recent figurative sculpture, I use it to introduce Charles Ray, who was fascinated by this work, and to suggest that you can never really separate abstract from figurative, or vice versa
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