Tanya Ashken
Sea Bird, 1964/2019
black patinated bronze work, cast from the original 1964 Rewarewa version
280 x 330 x 150mm variable
(plinth 28 x 370 x 190mm)
(plinth 28 x 370 x 190mm)
edition 9 of 12
Further images
Tanya Ashken Born 1939 Born in the UK in 1939, Tanya Ashken trained as a silversmith at London’s Central School of Arts and Crafts. She married the artist John Drawbridge...
Tanya Ashken
Born 1939
Born in the UK in 1939, Tanya Ashken trained as a silversmith at London’s Central School of Arts and Crafts. She married the artist John Drawbridge in 1960 and migrated to New Zealand a few years later. Here, she produced a rich body of jewellery and sculptural work, contributing significantly to a developing understating of modern object-making. In 1967 she was the Francis Hodgkins Fellow, only the second person to be awarded the fellowship. This allowed her to spend a year in Dunedin, developing ideas for sculptural works. Ashken has created a substantial body of sculptural works, ranging from small domestic objects to large scale public artworks. Perhaps the best known of these is her 1986 work Albatross, which was installed at Frank Kitts Park on Wellington’s waterfront.
Three of Ashken’s sculptural works are included in this exhibition, Head, Black Whole, and Sea Bird. These domestic scale bronzes demonstrate the artist’s distinctly modern aesthetic sensibility.
Born 1939
Born in the UK in 1939, Tanya Ashken trained as a silversmith at London’s Central School of Arts and Crafts. She married the artist John Drawbridge in 1960 and migrated to New Zealand a few years later. Here, she produced a rich body of jewellery and sculptural work, contributing significantly to a developing understating of modern object-making. In 1967 she was the Francis Hodgkins Fellow, only the second person to be awarded the fellowship. This allowed her to spend a year in Dunedin, developing ideas for sculptural works. Ashken has created a substantial body of sculptural works, ranging from small domestic objects to large scale public artworks. Perhaps the best known of these is her 1986 work Albatross, which was installed at Frank Kitts Park on Wellington’s waterfront.
Three of Ashken’s sculptural works are included in this exhibition, Head, Black Whole, and Sea Bird. These domestic scale bronzes demonstrate the artist’s distinctly modern aesthetic sensibility.