Sheffield's Graves Gallery exhibition marks centenary of one of the city's most celebrated artists

Sheffield residents will be familiar with the public artworks that Fullard created – his bronze sculptures have become familiar landmarks in the city centre – but this exhibition aims to showcase the depth and breadth of his wider body of work. Living in a Sculpture presents drawings, plaster casts and sculptures drawn from Sheffield Museums’ own collection, alongside a number of key loans. Highlights include sculptural works such as Three Women (1958) and Striding Woman and Child (1959), alongside works on paper like Mother and Child in Rain (1954) and Woman and Child (1959).

“The exhibition has been in the works for a few years,” says curator Elizabeth Lindley. “We have been having ongoing conversations with the George Fullard Estate and the Gallery Pangolin who represent the Estate and the timing this year works well as it is 100 years since Fullard’s birth and 50 years since his death. It was also an opportunity to show the works of his that we hold here in our collection and to situate him back in Sheffield where he was born, grew up and was inspired by.”

The youngest son of a miner, Fullard was born in Darnall in 1923 in the shadow of the Nunnery Colliery. He once described his childhood as ‘like living in a sculpture’ and it is clear that the fond memories he had of long days spent playing outside in the alleyways and busy streets around his home served as inspiration for many of his artworks. Those early experiences shaped the way in which he approached his creative practice and the themes that he went on to explore as an artist.

“As a young child he was growing up in the aftermath of the First World War and it was a challenging period for many people,” says curator Elizabeth Lindley. “That is very much what can be seen in his work. He had a fascination with people and the ordinary person in particular – the worker, the mother, ordinary people going about their day and he admired the resilience of Sheffield people at that time. Growing up in Darnell and playing out in those terraced streets, that really shaped him and he felt that it made him very much who he was. The sense of play comes through in all his work – that was the way he looked at the world and even as a child he had an acute awareness of the environment around him.”

Fullard began his studies at the Sheffield College of Arts and Crafts – he was there from 1937 to 1942 – and went on to study at the Royal College of Art, where he later became a lecturer. At the time of his death, relatively young at the age of only 50, he was Head of Chelsea School of Art. As a teenager he experienced the Blitz on Sheffield in the Second World War, he later served in the army during the war and was severely injured at the battle of Monte Cassino. Not surprisingly war and conflict became another central recurring theme in his work, particularly in some of his later drawings.

A selection of Fullard’s earliest drawings, from his student days in Sheffield, will also be on display in the exhibition thanks to a number of loans from Sheffield Hallam University’s special collection. “It’s been so interesting to look through his student sketchbooks,” says Lindley. “In those early drawings you can already see his amazing ability to capture the movement of people and their expressions, those fleeting moments – and that really stands out throughout his whole career. He could communicate the joy, beauty and absurdity of everyday life.”

Lindley hopes that the exhibition will encourage people who may be aware of Fullard through his works in the city centre to come and find out more about the artist who created them. “Fullard was very proud of being from Sheffield and of his working-class roots, it would be wonderful if people, having learnt about his life and career, might then go back and look at those public artworks and see them with fresh eyes. He really did find the extraordinary in the everyday.”

George Fullard: Living in a Sculpture is at the Graves Gallery, Sheffield until July 1. Free entry. sheffieldmuseums.org.uk