Michael Sandle RA describes himself as ‘“extremely stubborn, but art’s the wrong game to be in if you’re not. At times, things work. There are moments, and they’re wonderful. For example, when I sail into the harbour at Valletta and see my Malta Siege Bell Memorial, with the bell which rings for two minutes every mid-day, I feel ill with pride”. A smile steals from behind the storm clouds of Michael Sandle’s complex and fertile mind, spreading across his face like sunlight.’ (from Fiona Maddocks’ interview, to be found on the website Royal Academy 2007).
Meeting Michael Sandle was a most remarkable experience for me. I had been going to London for a number of years in order to pursue my academic research and to enrich my artistic experience. This year I visited the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, with the assistance of Dr Marjorie Trusted of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and there I met the research coordinator of the Institute, Dr Jonathan Wood. I was requesting assistance for my research into the sculptor Antonio Sciortino’s sojourn in England during the early years of the 20th century. Jon Wood kindly gave me an introduction to Michael Sandle, who turned out to be not only one of the most compelling sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries, but also an extremely amiable person, who immediately gave me his help. In his room at the Royal Academy we had an exciting exchange of views and ideas. We discussed our diverse artistic and academic experiences. He was also interested to learn about the Department of History of Art at Malta University, and how we are trying to expand our Fine Arts course there. He instantly took me by my shoulders, and accompanied me downstairs to see the workings of the Royal Academy School: meeting some of the staff was extremely motivating.
Michael Sandle is not only a sculptor, but also a highly acclaimed painter and engraver. During the 2007 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy one of his works, the Iraq Triptych, showing Tony and Cherie Blair naked, expelled from the Eden of 10 Downing Street, surrounded by symbolic images of the war, made headlines in the press and caused a scandal. It won the Hugh Casson Prize. Sandle is one of the few committed artists living today. His works are always tied to particular events that touch on the tragedy of man. At the Duveen Galleries in Tate Britain some years ago, one could have seen a sculpture he made in response to the Cold War, including the Vietnam War (1954-75), the most infamous and bloody of several ‘proxy wars’ fought between western powers and Communist regimes.
Sandle has said that this work, A Twentieth Century Memorial, was prompted by his witnessing the American National Guard “putting down – very harshly – a student riot at Berkeley UCLA campus against the escalation of the war in Vietnam, giving rise to an unprecedented massive student rebellion around the world. The reason I changed the title from the original A Mickey-Mouse Machine-Gun Monument for Amerika to its present more inclusive title was that whilst working on the sculpture I discovered that this completely unnecessary war was started by the British under Clement Attlee’s [Labour] government (1945-51)”. Sandle sees in Britain’s attempt to oust the Communist Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh after the Second World War parallels with the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Whilst he was discussing his works and endeavours, I could not but remember my meeting last year with another prominent British artist, Gerald Laing, who is also a surprisingly and refreshingly committed artist in today’s world of rubbish art. Both Sandle and Laing dedicate ample creative energy to the grave tragedies facing mankind. Both are unswerving in their political statements, without diminishing the artistic import of their works – which seem to be a breath of fresh air in today’s jungle of pseudo-art. Discussing these questions with Michael Sandle made me somewhat nostalgic for my time in Moscow, Milan and Paris during the 1970s and 80s. He made me recall other friends from the Sculpture Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. In fact, Sandle’s St George and the Dragon (1987) reminded me of the work of another sculptor friend of mine from Sofia: Krum Damianov’s (b.1933) Monument to the Asen Dynasty in Tarnovo, Bulgaria.
In 2007, Fiona Maddocks interviewed Sandle for the RA magazine, and described how, “Undaunted and uncompromising, Sandle continues to produce the monumental public works which have become his hallmark. At first glance no sculpture, as such, is visible amid the studio debris. All is functional: bandsaw, sanding disc, and plane, together with tangled yards of flex and tubing, dust extractor, vacuum cleaner, an ensemble of plastic dustbins. Fixative odours linger in the air, and the sharp, narcotic smell of glue.
‘Then, as we talk, Sandle flicks a brush and blows away sawdust gently, as an archaeologist might treat a shard of a newly found pot to reveal a small polished bronze, characteristically brooding and powerful: a twist of humanity lies stretched on a catafalque – Ideas Towards a Funeral Monument, Male Version. He unearths another, unfinished, which shows a man committing suicide by travelling on top of a train, incinerated by overhead wires.”
On the website British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century, we find that Michael Sandle was born in Weymouth, Dorset, in 1936. He studied at the Douglas School of Art and Technology on the Isle of Man (1951-54) and did his National Service in the Royal Artillery until 1956. During that time he attended evening classes at Chester College of Art. From 1956 to 1959 he studied printmaking at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, under Anthony Gross, Lynton Lamb and Ceri Richards. He was also taught by Andrew Forge, Lucian Freud and Claude Rogers. He then travelled in Europe with the assistance of an Abbey Minor Travelling Scholarship, receiving in the same year (1959) a French Government Scholarship. Periods of teaching in leading British art schools followed throughout the 1960s.
From 1970 to 1973, Sandle lived in Canada. He was Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Calgary, Alberta, until 1971, and held a similar post at the University of British Columbia (1971-72). In 1973 he moved to Germany and since 1980 has been Professor of Sculpture at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Karlsruhe, the intervening years having been spent teaching in Pforzheim and as the guest of the DAAD Artists Programme in Berlin (1974-75). He was a member of the Faculty of Engraving at the British School in Rome (1976-82).
Sandle was elected a Royal Academician in 1989, but he resigned in 1998 in objection to the infamous Sensation exhibition. He was re-elected in 2001. In 1994 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.
Sandle’s most ambitious project to date is the architectural sculpture for the Malta Siege Memorial (1989-93), an impressive project that includes not only a major figurative sculpture but also a 13-tonne bronze bell. Themes of war, death, destruction, inhumanity and media manipulation are constant in his work, as he treads a path outside the fashionable mainstream. Our discussion took a beautiful turn when he started to describe his warm feelings when he received the commission to work on the Malta Siege monument. His Malta connection is also linked with another personal event: he was christened on the historic vessel, the Ark Royal, so vitally important for the 1941 Malta Convoys, in which after its most heroic action in saving Malta from the tight siege grip of the Fascist-Nazis, the Ark Royal – so beloved by the Maltese – was sunk. Whilst talking about his monument, the British sculptor could not hold back his sadness and regret that no plaque informing the general public that he is the creator of this epic monument has so far been put in place. I hope that perhaps this article will highlight the injustice done to such an eminent artist, and that such a plaque will be installed in the near future.
Dr Schembri Bonaci is a lecturer
at the Department of History of Art, University of Malta