Steve Field (sculptor)

Steve Field
RBSA
Born
Stephen Field

(1954-05-03) 3 May 1954 (age 70)
Saltash, Cornwall, England
NationalityEnglish
Occupations

Stephen (Steve) Field RBSA (born 3 June 1954 in Saltash, Cornwall) is an English sculptor, muralist and mosaicist, active mainly in the West Midlands, particularly the Black Country, where a number of his works are on public display. He has been resident artist and public art adviser to Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, since 1988,[1][2] and is a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists,[3] the Contemporary Glass Society[4] and the British Association of Modern Mosaic.[4] He coordinated Dudley's Millennium Sculpture Trail.[5]

He studied at the University of Sheffield, earning a degree in architecture, and Wolverhampton Polytechnic, where he achieved a master's degree in fine art.[1] He cites his influences as futurism and vorticism, the sculptor Walter Ritchie,[6] his MPhil examiner David Harding, and the Mexican muralists.

In 1978 he painted a series of three murals on the gable ends of terraced houses at the eastern end of Heathfield Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, in conjunction with Paula Woof and Mark Renn.[7] These murals lasted around 27 years before being overpainted by new murals. In 1982, he painted an internal mural at Frankley Community School, together with Woof and Renn.[8] The trio worked as "The Mural Company" and were profiled in a 1982 Central Television documentary, "Round About".[7] In June–July 1984, Field and Renn exhibited on murals, jointly, at Bilston Museum and Art Gallery.[9]

Field, Woof, Renn, David Patten and Derek Jones worked jointly as the West Midlands Public Art Collective, which was active circa 1987.[10]

He received the Royal Society of Arts 'Art for Architecture' Award in 1993 and an Arts and Business Award in 2005.[3]

Field is married to fellow muralist Cathryn Ryall, with whom he has collaborated artistically. Field has also completed several collaborations with the sculptor John McKenna.[11]

  1. ^ a b "Public Art". Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  2. ^ "Millennium Sculpture Trail – Flood Street Island". BBC Online. 2003. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
  3. ^ a b "Stephen Field". Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  4. ^ a b "Mosaic Image – About Us". Archived from the original on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  5. ^ "Dudley Millennium Sculpture Trail". BBC Online. 2003. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  6. ^ Suart, Paul (20 July 2011). "Emotional Return to Mark 60 Years". Birmingham Evening Mail. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2013 – via HighBeam.
  7. ^ a b "Round About". MACE Archive. 23 June 2017. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  8. ^ Ostler, Timothy; Field, Steve (18 January 1984). "Working With Artists: 1 Possibilities". Architects' Journal. 179 (3): 55–59, 61–66.
  9. ^ "Gallery listings". Art Monthly (77): 41. 1 June 1984.
  10. ^ Tilson, Barbara (November 1991). "Art for the People". RIBA Journal. 98 (11): 41.
  11. ^ Noszlopy, George Thomas; Waterhouse, Fiona (1 January 2005). Public Sculpture of Staffordshire and the Black Country. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 9780853239895.