Torso

Reg Butler was born in Buntingford, England. He studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London between 1937 and 1939. During the Second World War, Butler worked as a blacksmith - an occupation that undoubtedly encouraged him to take up sculpture. Although he received no formal training, in 1953 Butler won first prize in an international competition for a monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner.

How to represent the human figure was a problem confronted by many sculptors in the aftermath of the Second World War. The human form was often shown distorted, dissected or incomplete. The solid body of this work moves away from Butler’s earlier more open forms, but the framework of rods attaching body to plinth echoes his previous linear sculptures. The nude figure became the focus of Butler’s work for the rest of his career. In this work he was not concerned with an ideal form, but with the awkward, expressive quality of a twisting body.