Lynn Chadwick’s ‘Maquette for R34 (Maquette for Stranger III)’ relates to one of the artist’s only public commissions. In 1957 Chadwick was awarded a contract from the Air League of the British Empire to commemorate the first double crossing of the Atlantic by the R34 airship in July 1919. Intended for the freight terminal at London Airport (now Heathrow), the project, due to opposition in the House of Lords was sadly never realised. The artist created a number of maquettes during the process, including the present.

Chadwick served as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War, flying anti-submarine torpedo bombers called Swordfish biplanes. In ‘Maquette for R34 (Maquette for Stranger III)’ wings emerge from the figure, with the indentations mimicking the air flaps on the wings of a plane. In this maquette Chadwick has also experimented with a new style of figure, using a single elongated rectangular head instead of a double head as with his original design for the airport contract. Taken with this mode of depiction he made a full scale version of the present sculpture, a photograph of which he can be seen welding is on the cover of Michael Bird’s 2014 monograph on the sculptor.

Earlier variations of this subject are now in a number of public collections such as Tate ‘(Maquette for R34 Memorial’, 1957).