Tim Stead

[close] Tim Stead MBE (1952 – 2000) was an English sculptor and furniture maker who worked primarily in wood.

Sculpturally, Stead's work did not appear to derive from any particular art historical tradition although the ideas of Brancusi, Beuys and Hundertwasser, amongst others, were central to his vision. Early on, he rejected Conceptualism, particularly in the way it was practiced at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham, where he completed the early part of his training. An early work, 'Burnt Tower with Creaking Pendulum’ contains most of his essential vocabulary, later expanded and refined.

Stead's work as a furniture maker cannot be separated from his ideas as a sculptor. His furniture owed something to Art Nouveau, in particular Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Majorelle and Victor Horta; his training at Glasgow School of Art was influential in this respect.

In his post-graduate year at Glasgow School of Art and in the year following, Stead's early use of abandoned and found materials developed into the use of hardwoods, some imported. Stead later committed to using only native timbers, notably burred elm and other 'imperfect' wood previously considered unfit for anything other than firewood, though now become highly desirable. He was attracted by thrift and by the heightened singularity of these timbers and the challenge of making virtues of their apparent unsuitability for furniture. Stead had begun exploiting the waney edge of the timber before learning of the work of George Nakashima who wrote The Soul of a Tree, a book highly respected by Stead as expressing much of his own feelings and beliefs.