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Max Barrett Max
Barrett started life as the wild boy of Penzance and ended as the wild man
of sculpting.
For
the past 25 years Barrett worked in a variety of media, from the granite
he found in the hills and quarries around his Cornish home to alabaster,
slate, wood (including driftwood) and coal. He cut the sculpture Meeting
Place, which now stands outside Sainsbury`s in Truro, from a 10-ton
granite block. He used a 6cwt block of alabaster to make Five
Semi-Quavers, inspired by the birdcatcher Papageno in Mozart`s The
Magic Flute, and in a BBC television programme made in the summer of
1996 and broadcast early this year he sat on an enormous granite boulder
in a field near his home and described how he was going to find “the
shape within the stone”. Barrett
came from old Cornish and gypsy stock. His early years were marked by
clashes with the law, his family and society. He was the son of one of
Cornwall`s famous boxers, Tommy Barrett, who was welter-weight champion of
the West of England in the 1930s. Barrett himself was an amateur boxer for
a while, and also worked on the land and at sea in a variety of jobs. He
did two years` National Service, during which time he trained as an
engineer and travelled the world with the Navy, then settled in
Southampton for a short while before eventually returning to his native
West Penwith in the 1960s. Although
he “whittled away at wood” and dabbled with painting as a youth, it
was not until he was in his late thirties that he wandered into an art
gallery in St Ives and was inspired to start carving seriously. Barrett`s
work and life were characterised by courage and a strongly individual
streak. He had no respect for the orthodox artistic community – he
always had a few ripe words for its representatives. They, in turn, found
it hard to come to terms with his obvious talent combined with a scathing
honesty and lack of reverence for the artistic establishment. For many
years he struggled financially because he refused to recognise committees
or organisations which he felt “promoted mediocrity”. Now his work is
exhibition in America. From
early on in his career Barrett lived with his partner Madeleine and their
daughter Azure in a caravan in a wood near St Ives, before moving to a
field near Trencrom Hill outside St Ives, to live in what was little more
than a hut. Gradually he filled the field around his little home with huge
sculptures and carvings, and when a few pieces sold, he slowly made
improvements to his cottage. In recent years, as his work gained
recognition, he bought a Land Rover and a few other luxuries, though he
never wore shoes. His choice to go barefoot was not without its price (he
once cut off his big toe with a garden strimmer, and the dog ran off with
the toe and ate it) but it was a continual reminder to him of how near we
always are to nature. A
deeply spiritual man, Barrett saw nature as the inspiration for his art,
and himself as a conduit through which nature expressed itself. He was
often angry with the world about him and hated its injustices and
ignorance, but in later life was able to channel his anger into passion
for his work. His early work is often described as violent, expressing his
wildness and frustration. He said, “All my life… people have thrown
stones at me. In anger, I threw them back, but not now. Now I pick up the
stones and carve them.”
Some
of his best works came from scrap metal, cast-offs from the industrial
society. He would wander around the port of Newlyn, looking for relics
from the fishing boats, which he would turn into original and beautiful
pieces. He said that he would “look for the shape within the piece”
and would never seek to impose his own will upon an object. He would know
when to stop, he said, because the wood, stone or metal would tell him:
“It`s like a dance where you don`t dictate the moves but the material
takes the lead – but if you lose concentration it`s gone.” He
carved dolphins and cellos out of encrusted blocks of coal hauled up from
the seabed where they had fallen from passing ships, and he cast bronze
figures of sleeping cats and stretching nudes at the local foundry at
Hayle. His scope ranged from giant outdoor pieces to small pieces which
sit in the palm of your hand. His work is mainly of simple shapes and
outlines and fits comfortably with the modernist school of west Cornwall,
although Barrett would have hated to be pigeon-holed into any particular
movement. With
very limited formal education, he taught himself to appreciate and
understand literature and music. He loved poetry, but saw music as the
ultimate art, listening to complex orchestral and operatic works, and
interpreting them in the materials around him. He was an artist who, in
his own words, “strived to channel the beauty of life through my work”.
If
there is one word to describe Max Barrett it is “uncompromising”, a
characteristic which, in his art, has led him to produce some of the most
innovative carving and sculpture of the 20th century. His
constant search for new ways to express the beauty of nature and his
bravery and single-mindedness in tackling any object or medium has created
an unrivalled legacy. “Art,” said Barrett, “is like food. It`s life.
It`s a basic truth. Art reflects life, in all its moods. You have to trust
your instincts and you`ll get it right. “I try to work with things that
have love in them and then get a song and dance out of them. Annie GurtonMax Schmeling Barrett, sculptor: born Penzance, Cornwall 25 May 1937; (one daughter by Madeleine Ladd); died Trencrom Hill, Cornwall 15 June 1997
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