Leon Underwood

Underwood was born in the west London suburb of Shepherds Bush. In the First World War, Underwood worked with Solomon Joseph Solomon as a camoufleur, creating observation posts camouflaged as trees. He sketched and painted examples of his wartime work, as in his oil painting Erecting a Camouflage Tree (1919).[3] In 1920 he received the British Prix de Rome but chose not to go to Italy, instead opening his own drawing school, then travelling elsewhere through most of the decade.[4]

Bronze model

Underwood is best known for his sculptures cast in bronze, carvings in marble, stone and wood and his drawings. 'Flux', one of his early works, was cast into bronze by Ercole James Parlanti as were a number of other early pieces.[5][His lifetime's work however includes a wide range of media and activities, and an expressive and technical mastery in what was at the time a ground breaking approach. His paintings included portraits and Mexican landscapes resulting from his youthful travels there. He was a friend of Ralph Chubb with whom he sometimes collaborated and exhibited.

He wrote a number of books on ancient African sculpture, including a study of the Ife and Benin heads, Bronzes of West Africa[6] which show his pioneering appreciation of their artistic significance and his understanding of their relationship to the culture and technology from which they originated. His access to the cave paintings of Altamira in Spain ignited his "New Philosophy" with regard to this interrelationship of the expressiveness and technology of primitive art.[1]

Among his students was Henry Moore, who later spoke of his indebtedness to Underwood's teaching.[1] Underwood however was always convinced that subject matter formed a fundamental role behind the power of both his own and primitive art, and had no belief in subject-less or purely abstract form in his own work. Other notable students, only a little younger than Underwood, include Gertrude Hermes and Blair Hughes-Stanton.[7]

Underwood set up the Brook Green School, Hammersmith, London in the studio where he personally cast his bronzes, sculpted his carvings and propagated his ideas about primitive sculpture as "...forms created by inspired belief...". The art historian John Rothenstein[8] wrote of him in an introduction to a retrospective exhibition of his bronzes at The Minories, Colchester in 1969 "...the most versatile artist at work in Britain today..." but added a quotation of the artist: "The ravens fed me".

Underwood was married to Mary Coleman. They had two sons, Garth (a zoologist)[9] and John, and one daughter, Jean.

• Tempera mural for Shell canteen London, 1954
• Relief panel for Commercial Development Building Old Street, London, 1955
• Reredos, side chapel and stained glass window, St Michael and All Angels, New Marston, Oxford, 1955
• Bronze candlesticks and crucifix Ampleforth Abbey, 1958

Public collections holding works by Leon Underwood include

• the Courtauld Institute of Art, London[10] (39 works)
• the Tate Gallery, London[4] (8 works)
• the National Portrait Gallery, London[11] (4 works)
• the Ingram Collection, The Lightbox, Woking[12] (2 works)
• the Victoria and Albert Museum, London[13]
• the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford[14]
• the National Museum Cardiff[15] (two works)
• the British Council Collection, London[16] (five works)
• Lincolnshire County Council's Art Collection[17]
• Hammersmith and Fulham Archives[18] (15 works)
• The Victor Batte-Lay Trust Collection at The Minories[19] (two works)
• The Brooklyn Museum[20] (three works)
• Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum[21] (six works)

• Leon Underwood, Mexican Wood engravings. St George's Gallery, 1928
• Leon Underwood, Mexican watercolours. St George's Gallery, 1929
• Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings and Engravings by Leon Underwood. The Leicester Galleries, 1934
• Sculpture in the Home. Arts Council, 1946
• Leon Underwood. Beaux Arts Gallery, 1953
• Bronzes and Wood Engravings by Leon Underwood. Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1973
• Leon Underwood, Mexico and After. National Museum of Wales, 1979
• Modern British Sculpture. The Royal Academy of Arts, 2011
• Mexico A revolution in art 1910-1940. The Royal Academy of Arts, 2013
• The Sensory War 1914-2014. Manchester Art Gallery, 2014
• Leon Underwood, Figure and Rhythm. Pallant House Gallery, 2015
• Becoming Henry Moore. Henry Moore Foundation, 2017

• Animalia. Payson and Clarke, 1926.
• The Siamese Cat. Brentano's, 1928.
• Bronzes of West Africa. Alec Tiranti, 1949.
• Figures in Wood. Alec Tiranti, 1951.
• Masks of West Africa. Alec Tiranti, 1952.

• Martin, Simon, ed. (2015). Figure and Rhythm Leon Underwood. Pallant House Gallery.
• Whitworth, Ben (2000). The Sculpture of Leon Underwood. Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries. ISBN 0-85331-774-7.
• Neve, Christopher; Rothenstein, John (1974). "Introduction". Leon Underwood. London: Thames & Hudson. pp. 1–5. ISBN 0500090998.
• Newark, Tim (2007). Camouflage. Thames and Hudson / Imperial War Museum.
• Rothenstein, John (1969). Leon Underwood a retrospective exhibition. Colchester: The Minories.