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Island Arts: Lee Tribe’s sculptures on view in ‘The Bathers’

COURTESY PHOTO | Lee Tribe, Bather 18. Pablo P, Play Minotaur, 2016, steel, formed, welded, paint and wax, 15 by 26 by 9 inches.
COURTESY PHOTO | Lee Tribe, Bather 18. Pablo P, Play Minotaur, 2016, steel, formed, welded, paint and wax, 15 by 26 by 9 inches.

The sculptures of artist and Island resident Lee Tribe are on view now at Victoria Munroe Fine Art in Manhattan. Mr. Tribe’s show, “The Bathers,”  opened on April 13 and will run through May 27 at the gallery, 67 East 80th Street, New York City.

Lee Tribe was born in Essex, England in 1945 and learned to weld at age 15 as an apprentice boilermaker and plater in ship repair. He attended St. Martin’s School of Art where he studied under Sir Anthony Caro and William Tucker both of whom offered him work upon graduation. In 1982 Mr. Tribe moved to New York City and showed with Victoria Munroe Fine Art for two decades. His work won critical acclaim and is in the collection of Storm King Sculpture Park, among many important collections in Japan, Great Britain and the U.S.

This new series of pedestal-size abstracted figures at play are assembled from cut, formed, welded and painted steel. Inspired by childhood games and memories on the shore of the Thames, Mr. Tribe sculpts his bathers out of thin lines dancing in air. A particular muse was Picasso’s painting, “The Bathers,” 1918 in which girls run along the beach in striped suits after a beach ball. Adding bangles of color to the steel bathers, he conjures ceremonial body paint worn by tribal people. The stripes here and there along the curves suggest sails, umbrellas and buoys. The joie de vivre in these abstracted reclining nudes bring Venus, the Maja, the Empress and the Olympia to mind as well as the arabesques of dancers, the postures of birds and human play at the sea side.

For three decades Mr. Tribe has explored on every scale both open, lyrical compositions and dense beasts of welded scrap and formed steel. There has always been an interest in abstraction as well as figuration. And given the facility he has with the material, he has a freedom that keeps the work fresh and innovative. In the surprisingly playful recent work, Mr. Tribe seems to have freed himself from the psychologically charged physical weight of the medium and it’s history.

Upon learning that he needed hand surgery in 2009 due to the overuse of hand tools for four decades, Mr. Tribe laid down his tools and turned to drawing for two years.

COURTESY PHOTO | Lee Tribe, Bather 10. Just Dishy Darling, Divine, 2016, steel, formed, welded, paint and wax, 12.5 by 19 by 8 inches.
COURTESY PHOTO | Lee Tribe, Bather 10. Just Dishy Darling, Divine, 2016, steel, formed, welded, paint and wax, 12.5 by 19 by 8 inches.

In this period of reflection on paper he explored two dimensional space in dark portraits. Once his hand was healed, Mr. Tribe returned to the studio — a massive collection of finished and abandoned sculptures, piles of scrap, sheet and found metal. There he was drawn to the smallest shapes of steel lying on the floor. As he began to tack the found pieces together he found a joy in reductive, jolly figures at play. He welded small triangles and balls to reclining contours. Soon the family of characters at leisure appeared. They were made of the waves of the ocean, the triangular sails, and the curves of the body.

Thrilled to be making sculpture again after a two year hiatus, Mr. Tribe has a light touch with the welds as he draws in air. Mindful of the tradition of Julio Gonzalez and David Smith he is welding in space, his second material. Folding, coiling, twisting the ribbons of steel each figure seems made from ocean waves, fish fins and sails a lyricism in his line; his bathers have become nature herself.

“With hindsight, my Bather series rode the wave of a spontaneous celebration,” Mr. Tribe writes in his artist’s statement. “These jolly little sculptures were a physical manifestation of the joy I experienced when I began making sculpture again after a hiatus of some two and one half years.”

For details, call (917) 900-6661 or visit victoriamunroefineart.com.

submitted by Margo Hudson (Director, Victoria Munroe Fine Art)