Work by celebrated sculptor Sally Arnup has gone on display at the Garden Rooms at Tennants in Leyburn.
Sally Arnup (nee Baynton-Williams) was born in London in 1930.
She once recounted how, at the age of two and a half, she was given a lump of clay at nursery school and felt an instant fascination with the material.
From a young age she set her heart on becoming a sculptor.
After training at Kingston School of Art, Camberwell School of Art and the Royal College of Art, she married fellow artist Mick Arnup and the pair set up studio in Holtby, near York, where she was to remain for the rest of her life.
Sally worked largely to commission, sculpting animals of all shapes and sizes.
She insisted on working from life and liked to spend as much time with her subject as possible, studying their character. Never working from photographs or even sketches, Sally preferred to work directly with clay, a practise which shows through in the naturalism of her finished bronzes.
This was a time-consuming process, and together with the complex lost-wax technique she employed to turn a clay model into a finished bronze, meant that Sally had a limited output of work during her career.
A new exhibition at the Garden Rooms at Tennants in Leyburn, will run from December 4 to January 2.
It will showcase over 60 sculptures from the York artist’s estate, which will go on to be sold at auction at Tennants Auctioneers, beginning in January 2020.
In addition, the exhibition will include a recreation of the sculptor’s studio and will offer visitors the chance to see wax and Plasticine models on loan from the Arnup family.
