David Partridge (artist)

David Gerry Partridge (October 5, 1919 – December 11, 2006) was a Canadian artist and sculptor best known for creating "naillies," works (sometimes very large) made of nails of varying sizes driven into plywood to different heights to form representational or abstract sculptures.

Strata (1969) (in York University Libraries)

He was born in Akron, Ohio in 1919. From 1928 to 1935 he lived in England, then aged sixteen moved to Canada. He attended Trinity College, Ontario between 1934 and 1938[1] before learning his trade at Hart House, University of Toronto from 1938-41, under Carl Schaefer & Cavan Atkins.[2] In 1941, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and served as a flying instructor until the end of World War II. In 1943 Partridge married and a year later he was naturalised as a Canadian citizen[2] and his wife gave birth to their first child.[3] In 1945 he began teaching at Appleby College, Oakville, Ontario[1] and then at Ridley College a year later.[3] After the war he studied painting at the Art Student's League of New York,[4] before he obtained a British Council scholarship which took him to the Slade School of Fine Art for a year in 1950.[3] Back in Canada he rejoined the staff at Ridley College and also taught at St Catharine's Collegiate. Partridge co-founded the St. Catharines Public Library Art Gallery in 1952 (later absorbed into the Rodman Hall Art Centre at Brock University) where he became its first curator.[5][3] In 1956 he retired from teaching, moved to Paris to study under Stanley William Hayter at the Atelier 17 studio, then moved to England. Partridge returned to Canada in 1958 and settled in Ottawa. It was there that he began to work on his first Naillies[3]

To create them, he would begin with a piece of plywood, although he was known to use doors, beams and other surfaces, which he sometime covered in buffed or abraded aluminum. Then he would hammer in nails of all sorts (aluminum, copper and steel) and lengths, beginning with the shortest to create a 'relief sculpture.' According to his fancy, he polished or trimmed the hammered nail heads, wrapped the Naillie in duct tape to give the surface more texture and lacquered or painted portions of the finished work.[6]

Metropolis by David Partridge (1977), 924 cm x 227.3 cm; aluminum sheathing over plywood, with copper and galvanized nails (in Toronto City Hall)

Partridge had his first solo exhibition at the St. Catharine's Public Library Art Gallery, Ontario in 1956 where he returned for another one-man show in 1959. He also held a further solo display in 1959, at the Robertson Galleries, Ottawa.[3] In 1962 Partridge was awarded the sculpture prize at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts annual exhibition for a work titled Standing Configuration No.9.[3] A few months thereafter he was courted by Time magazine.[3] He moved with his family to England in 1962, where Partridge received an honourable mention at the RCA in the same year.[7] The family remained in England for 12 years before returning to Toronto in 1974 where Partridge engaged the Robertson Gallery as his main agents.[3] He showed at the 1963 Santiago Bienale[7] and Partridge presented one of his nail sculptures at Expo 67 alongside Gerald Gladstone.[8] Partridge had a solo exhibition at the Moore Gallery, Hamilton in 1987 and showed at Nancy Poole's Studio in Toronto between 1986 and 1988.[4]

Partridge's works have been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada,[9] the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Tate Gallery,[10] the Victoria and Albert Museum,[4] and many other institutions. One of his major commissions was Metropolis (1977), which is in the entrance of Toronto City Hall, and consists of nine panels of over 100,000 nails.[11]

David Partridge died on 11 December 2006 aged 87.[5]