'More and Less': The Early Work of Richard Long (No. 17)

Description

Looking back over the diversity of Richard Long's (b. 1945) artistic explorations in the late 1960s, Alison Sleeman examines an unusual work: a pot, Untitled, 1965-66, which Long included in numerous painting and photographs over the proceeding year.

For most people familiar with Long's work - his documented walks, his photographs, his circular and linear floor pieces of stones or wood, and his mood drawings - the pot is something of a surprise.

Conveying the excitement and edginess of that early period of Richard Long's work, this essay explores some of the strategies by which the young artist began to formulate his art practice.

This essay was written to mark the acquisition of Richard Long's Untitled, 1965-66, by the Leeds Sculpture Collections in 1996, and to accompany the exhibition More and Less: the early work of Richard Long (20 July - 23 August 1997, Gallery 4).