Artwork
Untitled
Untitled is a photographic photography by Arnrid Banniza Johnston. It is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. This black-and-white photograph captures a stone relief, mounted on a green card, as part of William Kineton Parkes’s archival collection.
About this work
Overview
Acquired through correspondence with sculptors in the 1920s, the image was one of many responses to Parkes’s inquiries about contemporary sculptural practice.
This black-and-white photograph captures a stone relief, mounted on a green card, as part of William Kineton Parkes’s archival collection. Acquired through correspondence with sculptors in the 1920s, the image was one of many responses to Parkes’s inquiries about contemporary sculptural practice. The collection, later bequeathed to the Archive of Art and Design in 1938, serves as a documentary record of early 20th-century artistic exchange.
Subject & Meaning
The relief depicts two primary figures: a standing figure wielding a spear and a kneeling figure gripping a shield. Below them, a third, smaller figure sits with head bowed, introducing a tone of stillness amid the tension. The shield bears a basic emblem—a circle enclosing a cross—suggesting symbolic or heraldic intent. The composition conveys hierarchy and conflict, though the exact narrative remains unspecified, leaving interpretation open to cultural or mythological inference.
Technique & Style
Carved with deliberate roughness, the relief emphasizes texture over fine detail. Deeply incised lines create strong contrasts of light and shadow, enhancing the sense of motion and physical presence. The simplified forms and unpolished surface lend the figures a raw, tactile quality, aligning with early modernist tendencies to prioritize expressive force over classical refinement. The lack of ornamental finish reinforces a sense of immediacy and material authenticity.
History & Provenance
The photograph originated as part of a broader effort by William Kineton Parkes to document sculptural work in the 1920s. He solicited images from artists in response to questionnaires, compiling a visual archive of contemporary practice. This particular image, along with others, was preserved in his personal collection and eventually transferred to the Archive of Art and Design upon his bequest in 1938, ensuring its survival as a historical record.
Context
Parkes’s initiative coincided with a period of renewed interest in the relationship between modern sculpture and historical forms. His collection reflects a scholarly effort to map evolving techniques and iconography among British and European sculptors. The relief’s stylistic traits—its emphasis on mass, gesture, and minimal detail—mirror broader trends in interwar art that valued emotional resonance over academic precision.
Legacy
The photograph endures as a fragment of a larger archival project that illuminated the diversity of sculptural practice in the early 20th century. While the original relief’s current location is unconfirmed, its recorded image contributes to ongoing studies of how artists engaged with classical motifs through modernist abstraction. The collection remains a resource for understanding the transmission of form and meaning across generations.
Artist & collection
Artist
