Frontier Sculpture & Monuments
Artist of an Icon: The Memoirs of Arnold Machin
Artist of an Icon
The Memoirs of Arnold Machin
238 x 164mm, 224pp, inc 48pp col ill
ISBN: 978-1-872914-25-1 £24.00
Arnold Machin is renowned for the British postage stamp portrait of Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which has been reproduced 180 million times, considerably
more than any other image in history. "When I look back... I am amazed by it
all!"" Machin reflects on his childhood memories and the apprenticeship at
Minton at the age of 14. He recalls the atmosphere of the factory's smouldering
ovens and 'clay-end', as well as the exquisite technique of the china painter's
art. Art classes led to a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. Returning
to the Potteries and by now teaching art, Machin began to work for Wedgwood.
This
was interrupted when he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector. After
the war, he went to London to be ceramics tutor at the RCA. Elected RA in
1956 he became became Master of Sculpture in the Royal Academy Schools. In
1963,
the government wanted a new coinage and he was chosen to model the head of
HRH Queen Elizabeth. Subsequently he modelled the relief portrait of the
Queen for British postage stamps. "I saw my task as creating both a likeness of the
Queen and an image of monarchy... It looks so fine and so dignified without a
frame or lettering, is it really necessary to include them?""
This is the account of a significant 20th century artist who opposed modernism.
It's also the story of the icon itself, 'the Machin', described in a supplementary
essay by Douglas Muir, Curator of the Post Office's Philatelic Heritage Service.
"The most familiar piece of 20th century British sculpture is, without doubt,
the beautifully chiselled head of the Queen on the postage stamps. The bas-relief
on the stamps is so right that we take it for granted, as if it had come about
automatically. Such are the artistic good manners of the artist that we do not
even notice "the style" in which the stamps are made. They are truly classical
works of art. Had the Romans used postage stamps, they would undoubtedly have
wanted ones which resembled our own - austere, authoritative, perfect".
Rights: 2002 © Machin Archive / Frontier Publishing
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