Plate (facing page 36) from POEMS OF DEATH

Michael Ayrton was a British sculptor, printmaker, and painter whose practice spanned abstraction, figuration, and narrative mythological subjects across multiple media. Working primarily in bronze, wood, and etching, he developed a distinctive formal language that merged modernist geometry with classical and medieval references. Active from the 1940s through his death in 1975, Ayrton's output encompassed monumental public commissions, intimate chamber works, and a sustained engagement with labyrinthine and architectural forms that reflected his deep interest in myth and spatial construction.

London, UK