‘First Girl Sitting on Bench’ is a monumental sculpture conceived by Lynn Chadwick in 1988. Chadwick’s monumental sculptures have been part of a number of important public installations, such as at the Ashmolean in 2017 (‘Howling Beast I’, 1990) and above the door of Fortnum and Mason in London (‘King and Queen’, 1990).

Lynn Chadwick rose to prominence in post-war Britain. Having exhibited alongside Henry Moore, Reg Butler at the pivotal New Aspects of British Sculpture exhibition in 1952, Chadwick went on to fully establish his reputation by winning the International Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1956 – ahead of Giacometti – becoming the youngest sculptor ever to receive the award. At first working by welding, in 1956 Chadwick began casting his sculptures in bronze, giving his works durability and a more standardised surface.

In the 1970s Chadwick fully developed the visual language that is now synonymous with his work, depicting monumental sitting male and female figures. These winged figures transformed in the 1980s to regal cloaked figures on benches such as ‘First Girl Sitting on Bench’. The present sculpture, is a brilliant example of Chadwick’s mature style that bridges the gap between abstraction and figuration, while challenging the interplay between form, space, and emotion.

Chadwick rejected the smooth, direct-carved forms of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore to create a rougher textured skin. Using phosphoric acid Chadwick could control the tactile finish of his cast bronze sculptures and separate himself from what he considered to be the greasy shine of green and black patinas. Dissatisfied with the quality of many of his castings from the 1970s this allowed him to re-gain control of the casting process and restore the integrity of his sculptures by giving them the texture, colour, form, and ‘attitude’ that he always sought for his sculptures.

Lynn Chadwick's work can be found in the collections of major international museums including the Tate, London; National Museum of Wales; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; Musee Nationale d'Art Moderne, Paris; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; Galleria Nazionale d-Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC. He was awarded a CBE in 1964 and made a Royal Academician in 2001.