Look Who it Was Random video

Anthony Caro - 'If you want to change your art, change your habits' (15/53)

478 views · Published 21 June 2017 · 2:10 · Indexed 23 October 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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To listen to more of Anthony Caro’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFz9rq56s32Mdyx6_MiTN0WB 

Abstract sculptor Anthony Caro (1924-2013) was born in England. His characteristic method of sculpture involved the use of prefabricated metal. An influential tutor, Caro taught at St Martin’s School of Art.  He was knighted in 1987. [Listener: Tim Marlow; date recorded: 2005]

TRANSCRIPT: Sheila came with me. She stayed for a while, but I went on round to the West Coast where I met Kienholz and Diebenkorn and people like this, and... but Sheila stayed for... for some of the... some of the New York stuff. We stayed at the Chelsea Hotel... no, no, I stayed at the Biltmore, I think. We had a room for two dollars a night up in the roof. It was great. I met a lot of people, you know, and talked to Clem a lot. I had met Clem here by then, and Clem was the one who said, ‘If you want to change your art, change your habits’. So I... that was why I went into... into steel and aluminium and things instead of going into clay, because I had found that I had been trying to go abstract with the plaster and clay and it hadn't worked for me, or trying to get... trying to get away from the figure. I couldn't do it, but then he suggested, ‘If you go into something completely different you'll be forced to... to change’, which was good.

[TM] Is he the main reason you went to America – Clement Greenberg?

No, because I had wanted to go before I met Clem. I wanted to go in '58 and I didn't meet Clem until, I think, the summer of '59, and I went in the autumn of '59. No, and I met Ken Noland there and I met... saw the Noland Show. We got along very well; I got along with Diebenkorn up to a point too, but there was always a distance. I met Rauschenberg and Johns and people but they didn't mean anything to me, particularly... Chamberlain. They didn't mean anything to me. And Nevelson and... Helen was very nice to me: Helen... Helen Frankenthaler and Bob Motherwell were very kind to me. That was when I first met David Smith too.

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