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Sculptor and teacher, born in London, married to the painter Sheila Girling, their son being the artist Paul Caro. After studying engineering at Cambridge University, 1942–5, Caro studied sculpture at Regent Street Polytechnic, 1946, then at the Royal Academy Schools, 1947–52. He worked as a part-time assistant to Henry Moore, 1951–3. From 1952–79 Caro taught at St Martin’s School of Art, a dynamic period in which it was said that his students learned “not a style, not a dogma, but a discipline of doubt and enquiry”. Also taught at Bennington College, Vermont, in mid-1960s. Caro’s first one-man show was at Galleria del Naviglio in Milan in 1956. Then showed at Venice and Paris Biennales and elsewhere worldwide. A retrospective was held at Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1975 with tour; there was a large Tate Gallery exhibition in 1991–2 which showed that although Caro had become famous for bolted and welded steel and aluminium sculptures which were light and graceful he was later capable of monumental works such as After Olympia; in 1994 a seventieth birthday retrospective was held at Annely Juda Fine Art; in 1995 a major show being held at Tokyo’s new Museum of Contemporary Art; in 2001, a retrospective and workshops at the Town Hall, Lewes, Sussex.

Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)


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