LYNN CHADWICK AT HOUGHTON HALL
Opening on 2 May 2026, Houghton Hall will present a major exhibition of sculpture by the celebrated post-war British artist Lynn Chadwick CBE (1914–2003). Spanning four decades of the artist’s career, from the 1950s to the 1990s, this new presentation will showcase previously unseen and rarely exhibited works alongside his best-known sculptures across the house and grounds of Houghton Hall. It will form the largest exhibition of Chadwick’s work in the UK in more than two decades, following the artist’s death and the retrospective at Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries in 2003.
Curated by Pangolin London, the exhibition will present 30 works across multiple exterior and interior sites at Houghton Hall, including early works, a powerful group of dynamic beasts, kinetic sculptures, and a selection of Chadwick’s best-known paired figures (‘couples’), all set in dialogue with the Neo-Palladian architecture and extensive parklands of Houghton Hall.
About the Artist
Chadwick came to sculpture through unconventional means, initially training and working as an architectural draughtsman before turning to mobile constructions for trade fairs. The success of these early mobiles and free-standing sculptures, two of which were shown at the Festival of Britain in London in 1951, encouraged him to pursue sculpture full time.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Chadwick’s practice was rooted in construction rather than modelling. Working primarily in bronze, he moved from kinetic mobiles in the late 1940s to the iconic angular figures — often paired and drawn from human and animal forms — from the 1950s onwards. He began by welding an iron armature, or ‘space frame’, which he then filled with Stolit, a man-made stone composed of gypsum and iron filings, building up the surface into a solid form. Starting from abstraction and gradually giving his figures a strong sense of life and movement, Chadwick’s process reversed traditional sculptural methods. The result is a body of work marked by tension, attitude, and rich surface textures.
Chadwick came to international prominence in 1952, when he was included in the British Council’s New Aspects of British Sculpture exhibition at the XXVI Venice Biennale. In 1956, he returned to the British Pavilion, where he won the International Prize for Sculpture, beating Alberto Giacometti. He remains the youngest sculptor ever to receive the award. Seventy years on, this anniversary offers a timely moment to revisit Chadwick’s pivotal role in the history of post-war British sculpture.
Chadwick went on to secure an international reputation, with works in many of the great public collections of Europe, North and South America, and Japan. Many honours and awards also followed, including a CBE in 1964 and election as a Royal Academician in 2001.
L-R Sarah Chadwick, Lord Cholmondeley, Daniel Chadwick with Lynn Chadwick's The Watchers, 1960. Photo: Steve Russell
Plan your Visit
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Acknowledgements
The exhibition is rganised by the Houghton Arts Foundation, supported by Pangolin London and the Estate of Lynn Chadwick. The Houghton Arts Foundation continues to build a collection of contemporary art at Houghton including a number of site-specific commissions. With links to colleges and public institutions across the region, the Foundation’s aim is for Houghton to become a focus for those who wish to see great art of our time in a historic setting.
