A Retrospective of the Life and Works of Ros Newman
19th February – 30th March 2019
Ros Newman, the Norwich-based sculptor will be celebrating her 80th birthday with a solo retrospective exhibition at the Fairhurst Gallery. The artist, who has lived in Norwich for more than 40 years, has recently dismantled her studio and has been working with the gallery to catalogue her works for this insightful exhibition.
A contemporary of Elizabeth Frink and Barbara Hepworth, Ros first exhibited her work in 1969 and mounted her first solo show in 1973 at The Alwin Gallery in London, it was a sell out and she used the proceeds to buy an old barn in Fakenham. Surrounded by a family of artists, Ros’ uncle John Rothenstein was director of the Tate (1938 – 1964) and her grandfather was Sir William Rothenstein, an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman and former Principal of the Royal College of Art (1920 – 1935) where he mentored Henry Moore.
“My family has been dominated by artists and creatives. My Grandfather, Sir William Rothenstein was a painter… over 200 of his paintings are held in the National Portrait Gallery and he inaugurated the War Artists following a request he made to the King.” Ros Newman.
Ros began her studies at Chelsea Art School at the age of 16 but, finding it wasn’t for her, she left to teach woodwork at a progressive school, making guitars before attending Hammersmith College of Art where she discovered her love for welding. She developed a unique method of oxy-acetylene welding to use steel as a modelling material and used this to capture the movement of human and animal forms, initially creating works on a domestic scale before moving into large, outdoor installations.
It is appropriate that this exhibition is organised by her friend Dulcie Humphrey, who was nine when she first met Ros in Taiwan. Dulcie has curated sculpture trails in the past that included Ros’s work. Both the Royal Society of Sculptors and the British Artist Blacksmiths Association have recognized her distinctive use of steel as a sort of soft modeling material to create animated and exuberant figurative works. So it is time now for her to shut off her gas cylinders and for us to wish a very happy birthday to the torch artist, Ros Newman.