John Hoskin

Who was John Hoskin?

John Hoskin was a British sculptor from Cheltenham. He began drawing when he returned from Germany after serving in the Second World War. Terry Frost, a painter from the St. Ives school encouraged him to become a sculptor. John while working as an architect's draftsman but longing to become an artist, knew of the group working in St.Ives and decided to hitch-hike there one day. By a remarkable co-incidence, he was picked up and given a lift by Terry By the time they arrived, John knew being a sculptor was his destiny. It was he said "as if up until that journey my life had been playing out of tune"

He began sculpting in the early 1950s, working with metal. His works combined shiny curved surfaces with contrasting black welded comb of rods that held them together, a conflict of geometric and organic forms. He also made abstract figures. He soon became one of the most noted young British sculptors, with a successful one-man show at the Grosvenor and Matthiesen Galleries in the 1960s.