λ Anthea Alley (British 1927-1993) Untitled (Head) Metal and steel rods Height 17.5cm (7 7/8in.) Conceived circa 1959. Provenance: England & Co., London Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2014 Exhibited: London, England & Co., Anthea Alley: Works from the 1950s and 1960s, September 2014 Although not generally recognised as a household name, in the late 1950s, Anthea Alley was regarded as one of the brightest emerging talents on the London art scene. A painter by training, her welded metal sculptures were a direct development from her Brutalist paintings which, frequently incorporating sand, hessian and collage elements, became more and more sculptural. Alley's work of the 1950s bears comparison with that of another female artist of the period, Sandra Blow. Both artists were interested in the relationship between space and form and they shared a common use of of materials in their practice. From 1962, Alley went on to create sculptures from machine stampings, the pieces that remain after shapes have been stamped out of the metal by machine and several other different series followed. As her career progressed, she continued to innovate and improvise with different media. Examples of Alley's work are held in numerous private collections and by the Tate Gallery, the Arts Council and Birmingham City Art Gallery amongst others.