Biography

Paul Mount lived his later life in the town of Nancherrow near St-Just-in-Penwith in Cornwall. It was here that the artist brought his years working in West Africa to bear on the artistic heritage of the South Coast. Working alongside second generation St. Ives sculptors Denis Mitchell and John Milne, Mount developed a sculptural idiom which comprised of more pronounced, angular forms than those of his fellow Modernists. Mount attended the Royal College of Art before being stationed in North Africa from 1941 as part of the Friends Ambulance Unit. In 1955 he moved to Nigeria, founding the art department of the Yaba Technical Institute in Lagos. Through his work at the Institute Mount began to produce large-scale architectural works, completing a frieze for the Swiss Embassy as well as Chase Manhattan Bank in Lagos and the Cabinet Offices in Accra, Ghana. As such, to understand Mount as a sculptor alone does not capture the structural mindset which affords his work an astute sense of space and baroque dynamism. The present work represents a translation of such large-scale working processes into a more intimate, sculptural presence. Mount’s work has been shown in Spain, Germany, Switzerland and the USA, as well as numerous galleries and sculpture parks in the UK, including Marlborough Fine Art and the New Art Centre. His work was shown in a major show at Beaux Arts in London in March 2009.