Charlotte Mayer

Charlotte Mayer was born in Prague in 1929. She was brought to England as a child and grew up in London, Merseyside, the Lake District and other parts of Cumberland before settling finally in London. She studied at Goldsmiths School of Art (1945-49) and at the Royal College of Art (1949-52). Her training was academic and based in life-drawing, painting, sculpture, illustration and the history of art to intermediate level, before she specialised in sculpture. Her teachers, Harold Wilson Parker - famous for his image of the wren on the farthing - and Ivor Roberts, were influential in her early years, as was Frank Dobson, who later taught her at the Royal College of Art.

On leaving college Mayer received her first commission, an alabaster carving of a Mother and Child for Epsom General Hospital. The life-sized sculpture was considered to be 'too contemporary' for the hospital and was never installed. Further commissions followed, which together with regular exhibitions have ensured that Mayer's work is represented in corporate and private collections internationally.

Throughout her career Charlotte Mayer has learnt different scuptural techniques in order to apply them to the ideas she wished to express. Welding, modelling, carving and fabrication are all part of her arsenal of skills, which she calls on in response to a new idea for sculpture. Early carved pieces gave way to abstract, dynamic constructions in wood and metal, although she would equally turn her hand to modelling birds or animals. Mayer is acutely aware of natural forms, and these seep into all her work. The structure, movement or texture of animals, shells, plants, landscape, fire and water gradually took over from the human form as inspiration for sculptures and drawings, and she continues to look and probe further. Spiral shapes recur frequently in Mayer's work. These may be tightly contained, as in a snail shell, or dynamic, such as waves curling on to the shore.