Artists

Alan Thornhill (b. 1921)

Alan Thornhill was born in London and worked as a potter for nine years before embarking on sculpture in 1960. His love of clay as a working medium has persisted and all his large pieces have been completed in terracotta before being cast in bronze.

His work has been exhibited widely in the U.K and he has also shown elsewhere in Europe. In 2004 a retrospective exhibition entitled, Spirit in Mass opened at Kingscote Park in Gloucestershire. Thornhill has completed a number of portrait heads which are held in public collections including: A.S. Neill (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh); Hugh MacDiarmid (National Portrait Gallery, London); and Tom Stoppard (Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin).

'Alan Thornhill works in clay until invention begins to emerge from what he calls the 'Shelter of Preconceptions'. Here is no upholstering of the void or, for that matter, any smart current formula, but genuine expression' (Oswald Blakeston, Arts Review).