The Victorian tradition of monumental commemorative sculpture, figurative works cast in bronze, continued well into the new century. In counterpoint to this was the new Modernist method – of direct carving and ‘truth to material’ – in which the sculptor let the process of making the work dictate its final form. This Modernist Primitivism – inspired by ancient and non-Western art and imported from Paris – found roots in Britain through Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, and later acclaim through the work of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

The Post-War period saw an emphatic return to metal casting, although this time in the hands of a group of young sculptors – the likes of Kenneth Armitage, Eduardo Paolozzi, Lynn Chadwick and William Turnbull – whose work was expressionistic, seeking to express the human condition in the shadow of the Cold War. By the 60s, led by the likes of Anthony Caro, colour – flat and candy-bright – became a vital element, in work which was now more constructed than sculpted, using prefabricated industrial materials and their inherent suggestion of the Readymade.