Caro / Golding: In Conversation: Saatchi Gallery

Caro/Golding: In Conversation was presented in a designated exhibition space at the British Art Fair in 2018. The exhibition aligned the work of close friends Anthony Caro (1924-2013) and John Golding (1929-2012), and explored their affinities and shared influences. By displaying Caro and Golding’s work together it was shown how both artists used the human figure to inform their practices, even as they developed their respective paths towards abstraction. 

As close contemporaries, they both absorbed the influence of Abstract Expressionism and translated it into a British context. Both artists may consequently be regarded as pioneers in the development of twentieth-century art: Caro through his de-plinthed, painted, welded and bolted sculpture; and Golding, first through his seminal writings on Cubism and Abstract Expressionism, and second by his impressive and diverse oeuvre of hard-edged, colour field paintings. Piano Nobile’s display showed these two artists and friends at the moment they arrived at their full creative maturity in the early nineteen-seventies, demonstrating how both artists helped to reshape the canon of British art.