David Annesley began making colourful abstract sculptures in welded steel in the early 1960s. He was part of a group of young British sculptors, ‘New Generation Sculpture’, who experimented with materials, form and colour with the shared aim of pulling sculpture free from its classical foundations. For Annesley, his smooth, painted sculptural surfaces were a reaction against the rugged appearance of much 1950s sculpture. 

‘Three Red Boxes and Circle’ (1967), is characteristic of these experiments. It uses both composition and colour to infuse the sculpture with movement, energy and direction. Annesley arranges the three red boxes in an off-kilter, perpendicular shape that the pale circle both supports and is supported by. It’s a delicate and intricate balancing act that seems to defy the weight of the welded steel from which Annesley made the sculpture. According to Annesley, using colour opened up ‘a whole new way of articulating and realising feeling in sculpture’. Here, he uses the contrasting colour of the dark red boxes and white circle to emphasise the interplay between these different components and further convey a sense of lightness and dynamism.