Image: Anthony Caro, Lawmakers’ Table. Photo © Anthony Caro Centre.
Templon will present thirteen sculptures from Sir Anthony Caro’s late body of work ‘The Kenwood Series’ (2003–2004) at its Grenier Saint-Lazare gallery in Paris. The exhibition, which brings the series together in Paris for the first time, will run from September 5 through October 31, 2026, and is described by the gallery as a rare European presentation of one of Caro’s significant late projects. It inaugurates Templon’s 2026–2027 season.
The works combine stoneware, stone and steel, bringing ceramic material into dialogue with the steel that had long been central to Caro’s sculptural language. The exhibition follows a major shift in the artist’s practice after decades of abstraction, when his work increasingly engaged with figuration, narrative, landscape and the human figure. The forms in ‘The Kenwood Series’ evoke these subjects without becoming overtly representational. The gallery attributes that turn to figuration to Caro’s response to his immediate circumstances, saying his visual field had become increasingly filled with images of war and its after-effects in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and that he became involved in anti-war campaigning during this period.
Caro developed the series in 2003, working with the German ceramicist Hans Spinner near Grasse in southern France. The collaboration introduced stoneware into his practice, extending his exploration of how different materials could structure space and physical presence. Works listed by the gallery include ‘Witness’, ‘The Palace’, ‘Summit Games’, ‘Children’s Games II’ and ‘Bankers’ Table’, all dated 2003–2004.
At the centre of the presentation is ‘Witness’ (2003–2004), a large sculpture made from stoneware and steel. The work measures 279.5 by 221 by 147.5 centimetres, or 110 by 87 by 58 inches. According to the gallery, it appears to emerge from the ground and is intended to be experienced through movement around it, with scale, light and surrounding space forming part of the encounter. Caro described the sculpture as speaking “to you in a one-to-one way.”
The series takes its name from Kenwood House in London, where Caro first exhibited the sculptures. That setting connects the works to the artist’s longstanding interest in the relationship between sculpture, architecture and site. The gallery also links the material language developed in the series to what the gallery calls Caro’s last major architectural commission, ‘The Chapel of Light’ (2008) in Bourbourg, which used the same materials of steel, clay and stone.
Born in 1924 in New Malden, England, and died in 2013, Caro is identified by Templon as one of the leading sculptors of the second half of the twentieth century. During the 1960s, he helped redefine modern sculpture by moving works off traditional pedestals and placing them directly on the floor. His broader practice included welded and assembled metal sculptures, painted metal constructions and bronze table-top works, all rooted in an exploration of space.
‘The Kenwood Series’ will open at Templon, 28 Rue du Grenier Saint-Lazare, on Saturday, September 5, from noon to 8 p.m. The gallery lists regular opening hours as Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., during the exhibition period.
