Sally Arnup FRBS, ARCA (1930-2015)
"Two Week Old Chick", (1977)
Signed and inscribed A/C, bronze, 17cm high

Provenance: From the artist's estate

See illustration

Sally Arnup was one of the finest animal sculptors of her generation. Her passion for and affinity with both material and subject, and her insistence on working from life, shines through in the sheer vitality and character in each and every sculpture.
Sally Baynton-Williams was born in London in 1930; she 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, and with the support of her family left conventional schooling at the age of 13 to train at Kingston College of Art. After spending a year at Camberwell School of Art, in 1950 Sally entered the Royal College of Art, where she would be tutored by eminent sculptors such as Frank Dobson and John Skeaping, who was himself a renowned animalier (see lots 167 and 168). Here she met sculptors Elisabeth Frink and Jacob Epstein, the latter whom she met whilst he was working on a monumental sculpture in Skeaping's college studio.
In 1953 Sally married Mick Arnup, a painter and ceramicist whom she had met whilst studying at Kingston College of Art. In 1957 the Arnups moved to Holtby, near York, where they set up both home and studio to raise their four children and work together. Sally worked at the York College of Art from 1958 to 1972, where she was Head of Sculpture, and where Mick would become Vice Principal and Head of Foundation. Mick died in 2008, and Sally died in 2015 following a stroke. Their artistic legacy has been continued by their children; Hannah and Ben are well-regarded potters and Tobias a painter.
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, preferably in the animal's natural habitat or home. Animals were often taken to her studio; indeed, following a commission to make a sculpture of a swan for the Vintners Company in London, Sally borrowed two rescue swans from a sanctuary.
Never working from photographs or rarely even sketches, Sally preferred to work directly in 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. Indeed, from start to finish, a life size sculpture could take three years to make.
Sally worked every day except Sunday into her eighties, sculpting pets, working animals, farm animals and wildlife for private clients and institutions. Notable commissions included sculpting a cast silver leopard to present to HM the Queen by the City of York, which is now in the Royal Collection, and she also sculpted a life-size bronze of 'Storm', a fell pony, for Prince Philip, which she worked on in the stables at Windsor Castle.
Her work has been exhibited around the world, including at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of Artists, the Royal Society of British Artists. Sally was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.