My Hand at Work

Project Details

Dimensions (cm): 20 x 20 x 17 (w x d x h)

Weight: 9.0kg

Commissioned by: School of Dentistry – University of Birmingham

Date: 1994

My Hand at Work

In my former life when I was dentally and medically qualified and had a practice with 8,000 private patients (1957 – 2007) these hands were very, very busy.

I think the last time they stopped for a moment or two was about 1942 when, as a 4 year old , I was playing with my Mother’s Singer Sewing machine, turned the handle and caught my thumb in the needle at the back and was impaled! Stopped in my tracks and painful too! Once released, I kept them, safe and working.

Much water has passed under the bridge since then and as a busy Dental Surgeon, having also taken a Medical Degree, I worked at what I would call an artistic science, using hand-eye skills to the greatest degree of accuracy and perfection.

When I had a needle stick injury in 1987 and caught Hepatitis B from a patient who was apparently a carrier, I had a forced absence from practice for nearly 4 months.

I started sculpting in my bedroom and despite clearing the virus and returning to full time surgery I had, ‘out of the blue’, mysteriously become a sculptor and have never stopped creating works of art since that ‘fateful’ day.

This is my right hand, cast in bronze, wearing a dental rubber glove and holding a Kavo drill. This commission, from the Birmingham Dental School, was to make a work of art to be used as an annual prize for a best student and also to commemorate one of the University’s great dental surgeons. So far as I know, it is still awarded today. In that respect this work is unique, although I do own an artist’s proof.

The Lost Planet

Project Details

Dimensions(cm): 40 x 25 x 15 (w x h x d)

Weight: 17.1kg

Date: 1994

The Lost Planet

Another work in the Ballhead Series and here I have used a red sphere. My idea is to produce an edition of 8 works with all the ballhead series but the sphere should be a different colour for each of the numbered works in editions of 8. 1/8 Red, 2/8 Yellow, 3/8 Blue, 4/8 Green, 5/8 Black, 6/8 White, 7/8 Purple; 8/8 Pink.

This would give an interesting degree of uniqueness.

In this piece I have used strong, wall-like pieces, some cut and sectioned with, I guess, the influence of the great Richard Serra. While the vast majority of my sculpture is cast in bronze, I aim to make this work from cast iron so that it will rust.

This is another maquette I would love to enlarge to heroic dimensions to get the real feel of what I am trying to achieve.

Will I ever do it? Can I afford to do it? Can I afford not to do it? Time will tell. If I don’t do it, my estate can perhaps. They have my full permission!

Mother and Child Reclining

Project Details

Dimensions (cm): 40 x 25 x 15 (w x h x d)

Weight: 17.1kg

Date: 1994

Mother and Child Reclining

Like “Tête de Famille” this work appeared when I was playing with some wax and it is a small maquette of a mother lying back with her baby on her chest wrapped in her clothing. I cast her in bronze and she is rather charming. I have never made an edition of her but I can do so if anyone would like a cast. I would probably enlarge her and make my usual limited edition of 8.

This little work was cast in 1989 by Burleighfield and was much admired when Charles Pinellis was visiting my studio when he was running Susse Fondeurs. He said ‘I’ll have that for my desk to sit with a little Degas and a Zadkine!’ I was much flattered by that remark but it went no further. At that time Susse were making the polished STERLING for me, which took one man in the foundry many months to perfect. He had made all the Brancusi posthumous works which were later to become the centre of huge controversy in New York.

When Susse completed my polished works , they made two of them for me, I took one to a reception in the 14th arrondissement in Paris by the personal invitation of Madame Rhodia Dufet Bourdelle. She lived within the buildings of the Musee Bourdelle and was the daughter of the great Antoine Bourdelle who had worked for many years for Rodin before branching out on his own and becoming one of the greatest of all French 19th century heroic sculptors. She told me that she absolutely loved the polished “Sterling” and wrote me a wonderful personal letter about it, which I treasure.

You will see that it is addressed from 16, Rue Antoine Bourdelle which is now the main Bourdelle museum in Paris which Rhodia curated and where she lived until her death in 2002.

The text reads:

29 November 1989

Dear Mr Baker,

I was deeply touched by your letter and beg your pardon for taking so long in answering.

Father’s exhibition in Yorkshire was a great joy for me and I am very happy to know how much it impressed you.

Concerning your own works, I find them extremely interesting and I congratulate you.

Father always aimed at the equilibrium between spaces. volumes and the outlines of objects and I believe that it is also your research.

Sincerely yours,

Rhodia Dufet Bourdelle

Mother Superior

Project Details

Dimensions (cm): 7 x 50 x 22 (w x h x d)

Weight: 3.5kg

Limited Edition: 8

Date: 1989

Mother Superior

No doubt inspired by Elizabeth Frink’s work at Salisbury Cathedral and with a hint of Chadwick too, this work was first exhibited at Watermans Gallery in Jermyn Street in 1989 and the first of the edition 1/8 was bought by a very well known trustee of The Tate. A good start to Neil’s career as a sculptor!

There are 4 casts of this maquette still available. The face is polished bronze and the overall patination is a golden brown colour.

This work will also be enlarged to 180 cm in height, again in bronze.

Portcullis and Crown

Project Details

Dimensions (cm): 120 x 154 x 13 (w x h x d)

Weight: 4,000kg

Commissioned by: Palace of Westminster

Date: 1991

Portcullis and Crown

I was commissioned by the then Chairman of the Works of Art of the Palace of Westminster.  He was one of the longest serving conservative members of parliament being elected to the Cannock constituency in 1970 and then changing constituency to South West Staffordshire (now South Staffordshire) until 2010 when he retired and became Baron Patrick Cormack.

He asked me to look at the entrance to the parliamentary offices at No 1 Parliament Street which was being refurbished and for which various works of art were sought.

It was thought appropriate to have a sculpture of the Portcullis and Crown in the entrance.

I duly made a small pattern and then with Montagues of Slough, who made very accurate patterns for Rolls Royce and other manufacturers, we made a large Portcullis and Crown in wood which was duly sand cast in bronze at the Burghleighfield Foundry.

It weighed 4 tons and had to be wall hung!

We installed it in the entrance lobby and on November 8^th 1991, ( a birthday treat for me), HRH Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, dedicated a plaque in the presence of a number of leading MPs including Michael Heseltine and Hugh Rossi and the Speaker of the House, now The Baron Weatherill, and the building was opened.

My then wife Auriol and I were invited for lunch to Speakers House and the famous architect Sir Hugh Casson was also a guest and came to congratulate us on the work.

“Are you the artist?” he greeted me and, turning to Auriol said “are you an artist too?”

Then a sharp step backwards… ” I do beg your pardon… are you an artist?  People do that to my wife when they meet me… “Are you an architect too?” they greet my wife. “No. I am an architect she tells them smartly…”

“I do beg your pardon, I did not mean to belittle you in any way and I think the heroic bronze you have both produced is excellent.”  It was a privilege to have been given that commission and another great occasion brought about by being a sculptor.

Later when Portcullis House was built, we won a competition to have a major work installed there, but that commission never came to fruition and that is another story!

[unitegallery Portcullis_and_Crown]