Work Bench, 1988
Clay, Wood, Metal, and Circular Saw, 58" x 84" x 20"
Tony Hepburn was born in Manchester, England, in 1942. He received degrees from the Camberwell College of Art in 1963 and London University in 1965. His work has been exhibited internationally, including shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the American Craft Museum, New York, and the Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C. He received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Hepburn made sculptures combining found objects and clay elements that were often interpretations—or "evocations"—of objects that intrigued him. His earliest works were large-scale sculpted gates and totems, and in the mid-1980s he began a series of rural elegiac allegories based on the environment and people of upstate New York, where he resided. Hepburn died January 5, 2015.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.