Study for Changing Formact B

The dynamic arrangement of L-shaped units in this drawing is carefully balanced with the unbroken square that dominates the left-hand side of the work. The drawing maps out the arrangement that Anthony Hill used for Changing Formact B, a shallow relief constructed from white-faced plastic elements in 1978-9. [1]

Hill experimented with different configurations of the L-shaped units in a series of related reliefs in the 1970s, which were often informed by mathematical structures. [2] Hill described his process as putting abstract mathematical notions ‘to work’, by combining measured modulations with his own artistic decisions. [3]

Lisa Newby, March 2021

[1] See 31593 in the Sainsbury Centre Collection.

[2] See 31540 in the Sainsbury Centre Collection and Changing Formact A in the Tate Gallery Collection ‘Changing Formact A’, Anthony Hill, 1978–9 | Tate. For an overview of this series of works, see Alastair Grieve, ‘The development of Anthony Hill’s work from 1950 to the present’ in Anthony Hill, A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (London: Hayward Gallery, 1983), p. 56-8.

[3] Anthony Hill, ‘A View of Non-Figurative Art and Mathematics and an Analysis of a Structural Relief’, Leonardo, Volume 10, No.1 (Winter, 1977), pp. 7-12, p. 12.