Lynn Chadwick was born in London and after attending Merchant Taylor's School, he entered an architect's office, where he worked as a draftsman, until World War II, when he volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm, Royal Navy.

In 1944 Chadwick returned to the architect's office of Rodney Thomas and, influenced by his employer, began working on mobile structures, which led to his first solo show at Gimpel Fils, London, in 1951. Chadwick then developed his ideas from mobile to stabile and this led to more figurative works.

Although Chadwick came to sculpture later in his life, his work was soon recognised and some of his earliest pieces were included in the Venice Biennale in 1952. Four years later Chadwick beat Alberto Giacometti to win the International Sculpture Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale.

His work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally and is held in major museums in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Japan.

Chadwick was appointed CBE in 1964 and a retrospective was held at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 1991-92. He was elected a Senior Royal Academician in 2001 and recently a major exhibition of Chadwick's work was held at Tate Britain (September 2003- March 2004).

In 1954 Chadwick commented in a broadcast talk on the BBC Home Service, 'A Sculptor and His Public', 'It is a great joy to have a visitor who feels for sculpture; who does not fear his own reaction; who knows that appreciation is not in the first place intellectual criticism but enjoyment through the senses; who understands that sculpture, though it may make its literary allusions, has a separate identity, is an expression in form and mass and is vital by reason of what it is' (see D. Farr, exhibition catalogue, Lynn Chadwick, London, Tate Britain, 2003, pp. 104-5).