Friends and supporters of the seminal Scottish artist George Wyllie – who gave the nation the Paper Boat, the Straw Locomotive, and a clock running for a bus – have expressed their "disbelief" that his work will be absent from a major new sculpture exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland.
The Sculpture Show, to be held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA) from December this year, is a survey of the history of modern sculpture from 1900.
It will feature works by Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, Henry Moore, Eduardo Paolozzi and this year’s Scottish Turner Prize nominees Martin Boyce and Karla Black as well as Ron Mueck’s enormous A Girl sculpture.
However, the extensive exhibition, which will fill the whole of the SNGMA, will not feature any works by Wyllie, the Glasgow-born artist and “renaissance man” who made a series of bold sculptural statements at the height of his career and inspired many young artists in the 1980s and 1990s.
Louise Wyllie, the artist’s daughter, said the Friends of George Wyllie group had held discussions this year with senior figures at the National Galleries of Scotland, spurred by the fact that there was no work by Wyllie held by the national collections, and so she was surprised his work was not represented in the show.
Of her father’s absence from The Sculpture Show, she said: “It certainly seems like an odd omission, judging by the reaction to a recent campaign by the Friends of George Wyllie which has prompted a flood of emails and calls from New York, Berlin and much closer to home, from curators and admirers alike wondering how they could be involved in promoting his work.
“George was one of the most innovative British artists of the late 20th century.
“His Straw Locomotive and Paper Boat projects were ground-breaking, with the Paper Boat even making the front page of the Wall Street Journal when it docked in New York in 1990.”
She added: “My father has been acknowledged by the current crop of contemporary art masters who emerged from Glasgow in the 1990s as being at the vanguard of creating site-specific work which found new and fresh ways to connect with the public.
“Their work will be seen at The Sculpture Show and my father’s work won’t.”
The film-maker and author Murray Grigor has worked with George on several projects over the past four decades, including The Why?sman film, which explored Wyllie’s life and work.
He said: “Many of his monumental sculptures are permanently installed in urban settings around the world.
“Yet, curiously, you won’t find a single work by Wyllie in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Why? Is this because the art historians there are devoid of a funny bone?
“Including his work in the forthcoming Sculpture Show would have been a perfect opportunity to begin the process of bringing his work permanently into the National Galleries of Scotland. It’s unbelievable that he is not included.”
A spokeswoman for the National Galleries of Scotland said: “The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s forthcoming exhibition, The Sculpture Show, will be a free exhibition predominantly based around the current strong holdings of sculpture already within the national collection.
“The National Galleries have been in discussion with the Friends of George Wyllie about how we can help to research and record the artist’s work and would be delighted to have a piece of sculpture enter the collection once this initial consultation has taken place.”
Wyllie, who is in his 90th year, now lives in a care home, much of his work is in storage, and there has never been a major retrospective of his life and career.
The Friends, led by Ms Wyllie, Grigor, and Neil Baxter, secretary of the Royal Incorporation of Architects, among others, want to celebrate his landmark birthday with events, exhibitions and publications that will cement his contribution to Scottish culture.
Much of his work was donated to Strathclyde University five years ago.
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