In 1952, the year in which Kenneth Armitage conceived ‘Friends Walking’, the artist was chosen to be part of the British Pavilion’s presentation at the Venice Biennale entitled ‘New Aspects of British Sculpture’. Curated by Herbert Read, the exhibition is recognised as one of the most defining moments in Modern British Art. It was at this moment that Armitage, alongside his contemporaries Lynn Chadwick, Reg Buter and Eduardo Paolozzi, propelled a new visual language for sculpture. The smooth surfaces of their predecessors such as Henry Moore, were replaced by rough and tactile materials, and fluid curves transformed into jagged, defiant edges.

Armitage described how “The exhibition of the British Pavilion at the 26th Venice Biennale, ‘Aspects of British Sculpture’, was an instant success. I sold practically everything. The first person there to buy was Peggy Guggenheim; the second, Madame Schiaparelli and the Museum of Modern Art, New York… The exhibition was a sell-out. It was really the beginning of my professional life… I was totally unknown before that, and in those few weeks I became a known name internationally”.

Playfulness lies at the core of ‘Friends Walking’. The three bodies are merged together, with eight legs carrying them in a unified movement. There is a wonderful contrast between the exaggerated block-like torsos, slender limbs and small round heads, which invite delight in their unnatural proportions and innocent nature. His aesthetic at this time was closely associated with that of Jean Dubuffet who was working in France. They were both included, with Giacometti, in the New Images of Man exhibition at MOMA in 1959.

Other casts of ‘Friends Walking’ are now in the British Council Collection and the Yale Center for British Art.