Sculptures for the world at large

Tamaryn Greer and Lore Watterson of Creative Feel spoke to Mark Read, director of Everard Read Gallery, about his passion for sculpture and his role as a mentor to South Africa’stop sculptors.

It’s a warm day, so Mark Read suggests we sit on the deck outside his home on top of the Everard Read Gallery for our chat. The views from up here are spectacular, and Read’s two passions are immediately evident: art and conservation. He eagerly points out the baobab tree he is busygrowing – just one of the many well-tended plants that fill therooftop space.

He points out a striking bronze by Deborah Bell; a custodian of the skyline, visible from his bedroom window. Read’s love of sculpture is the reason for our meeting. Everard Read Gallery represents most of the sculptors inSouth Africa – sculpture gardens like Norval Foundation or Nirox are dotted with large-scale three-dimensional works by some of the country’s most respected artists, most of whom are Everard Read artists.

Mark Read is deputy chairperson of the WWF South Africa Board, has previously held positions at Christie’s Fine Art Auctioneers, London, and was a founding trustee of The Rhino and Elephant Foundation, a co-founder of the Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST) and a founding partner of the Great Plains Conservation Tourism Company. He took over as director of Everard Read Gallery from his father in 1990 and has been a part of the business for 40 years. When he took the reigns, the gallery, which is now 105 years old, ‘sold about 20% bronzes and 80% paintings, and now it is absolutely the other way around for this business, and I find it a custodian remarkable,’ says Read.

Guy Pierre Du Toit, King and Queen, 2018. Bronze, 170 x 122 x 110cm. Edition 5 of 12

‘I’m privileged to lead the team whilst I’m around here, in growing it as much as we can, and doing what we can for artists from all over the continent. People are really deeply interested in what is happening, and not a day goes by without some extraordinary person from somewhere in the world reaching out and trying to find out how they interface with us and the artists we show.’

That the gallery now specialises in large pieces, says Read, is ‘half conscious, half chance.’ One thing he does credit for making this possible is the excellent foundries that we have in South Africa. ‘About 20 years ago, for various reasons, the foundries upped their game. South Africa has brilliant foundries, quite a number, and the bronzes that they produce are really, I generally hate the term “world-class”, but they are. They’re up there with anything, anywhere.’

This hasn’t always been the case, he says. Decades ago, there were a few foundries in SA, but if you really wanted ‘something very upper-class’, you had to send it to Italy or the US or the UK or France.

‘In South Africa, sculptors now have the ability to take their work to a top-quality foundry. Nothing’s cheap, but it’s certainly less money than elsewhere in the first world,’ says Read. ‘So there’s been this great relief on the part of artists that are interested in three-dimensional works of art – that they can actually produce something that is a valid interpretation of what they started out with. They can trust that the plaster ends up actually being properly transposed into bronze in a way that pays homage to the artist’s work.’

Norman Catherine, Balancing Act. Bronze, 98.5 x 43.5 x 47cm. Edition 1 of 12

It’s a feedback loop, says Read. As artists grow, their work stimulates the foundries. Dylan Lewis, for example, when he started out ‘had absolutely not a brass farthing’, and his first bronzes were about the size of a cricket ball. ‘But then he got bigger and bigger and was very demanding of the foundries and stimulated them to do bigger and better things… Dylan’s imprint on Cape foundries was immense.

‘He was the person, in my opinion, who pushed the foundries down there to really up their game, and now they do monumental works for him that sell throughout the world.’

Lewis now has his own sculpture garden in Stellenbosch. ‘It’s incredible that one man can go from not being able to cast anything bigger than a cricket ball to actually purchasing a fabulous place in amongst the Winelands and then sculpting it very tenderly. It’s got wonderful lakes and his pieces dot the area and do a botanical wander through this fynbos garden with these bronzes rising out of the fynbos – it’s just incredible. It’s really a gift for South Africa and it’s profound, it really is, that one artist can do that.

‘Dylan and I have worked a lot together and we had shows of his work in India and London, and I must say, that gave me a lot of impetus. I started to attract the attention of collectors and artists because of our success.’

One such artist is Deborah Bell. ‘One of the reasons why she wanted to show with us is that I said to her that we would underwrite the costs of any bronze.’ To really dominate the bronze market, says Read, they had to commit to helping the artists do what they need to do – ‘we generally, not all the time, but generally pay for the bronzes and then we recoup our investment when the bronze sells.

Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden PHOTO Elsa Young

‘We are now in the process of casting an entire exhibition of absolutely wonderful bronzes from Deborah Bell for her Cape Town show in March next year. There are about 18 bronzes, including one very monumental piece, which I think will be the most exciting three-dimensional work of art in South Africa in the coming year. It’s a woman of the world who’s clasping sort of a bowl and water is almost leaking through her breasts into a bowl.’

Brett Murray is another artist Everard Read has placed considerable investment in. ‘He went from being, essentially, a commentator on the political landscape in two-dimensional works into, primarily, a sculptor at the moment.’ Murray’s bull bronze, entitled Again Again, which is now at Norval Foundation, cost just over R2 million just to cast it. ‘You can’t expect an artist to cover that, it takes a heavy swallow for me to do it.’ Murray also has a show coming up in Cape Town in 2019.

Everard Read also represents Angus Taylor. Known for his powerful, often monumental, sculptural works, Taylor works with an extraordinary range of materials from his immediate environment – Belfast granite, red jasper and the orange soil found near Pretoria, where his studio is based. Taylor, says Read, ‘has his a custodian industrial casting facility which totally backs up everything he does. It allows him to scale to extreme proportions. He has massive gantries to hold things in position, huge drilling machines, and he’s got his own foundry – he can cast in stainless steel, which needs to be cast at such a high temperature that it is a very rare thing to be able to do. It’s a profound thing that he has built up there.

Brett Murray, Bart In Africa, 2018. Bronze, 120 x 60 x 62 cm. Edition 2 of 6

‘Rina Stutzer, his wife, has just done a huge bronze of Africa for the Mall of Africa, so they really are on the map for developers who are creating massive buildings. For instance, Angus is putting a huge piece outside the presidential palace in Addis Ababa. Another large piece of his is going into a building in New Delhi, he has monumental pieces littering Australia, so he is enormously busy.’

Everard Read’s artists are achieving enormous successes internationally, something Read finds as unchallenging logistically as shipping a magazine. There are considerations to take into account though, which the Everard Read Gallery does advise on, such as ensuring that when the sculpture is lifted out of the shipping container, the belt that suspends it doesn’t rub against and damage the patina.

Under the guidance of Mark Read, Everard Read is now the go-to gallery in South Africa for sculpture collectors across the globe. With galleries in Rosebank, Cape Town, Franschhoek and London, Everard Read is, as Read puts it, a rising star.