Robin Greenwood: An Appreciation by Tim Scott

Robin Greenwood, ‘Horse Jaws’ (2004), steel, h 117cm

I first encountered Robin when he appeared at St. Martins as a postgraduate student on Alan Gouk’s Advanced Sculpture Course. He was intense and something of an oddball.

Later, I selected him as part of a group of dedicated sculptors who were associated with Stockwell Depot and mostly ex-St Martin’s students, to run the ‘New Course’ I initiated there in 1980.

Many years later, Robin offered me my first London show since 1980 at the newly-opened Poussin Gallery, his admirable space in London’s Bermondsey dedicated to abstract art. From then on I was privileged to be one of the frequent contributors to his new online venture Abstract Critical, and then to its successor, Abcrit, an online survey of new abstract painting and sculpture. I had recently planned to show again with him this year; sadly it will not be.

Robin was one of very few sculptors to see a way forward from the impasse abstract sculpture had reached by the turn of the century; in particular the steel tradition of Smith and Caro. Such a vision requires imagination, dedication, passion and the capacity for hard work, all of which he had in abundance. He was a sculptor who constantly used his keen intelligence and sense of history to plough new furrows, often surprising and even shocking in their unfamiliarity. He was an original.

He was, as well as being a sculptor of new visions, an essayist and commentator on contemporary and historical art whose writings put most professional critics to shame in their erudition and insight. His articles and commentaries in Abstract Critical and Abcrit were often memorable and always straight to the point, unlike so much art writing today. It was obvious that he had spent a great deal of time looking before he voiced any opinion, something which one unfortunately suspects is rare. He backed his excellent taste by offering shows to many younger abstract artists who otherwise would have struggled to be shown at all. He was a considerable painter as well as sculptor, and, unusually, combined those talents with a very strongly developed sensibility for architecture.

Robin was a polymath, a man of wide vision, of wide-ranging tastes and perceptions. His passing is a great loss to the British art world, and to sculpture in particular.

In memoriam: Robin Greenwood, July 11th 1950- March 1st 2023