NAM.2017-01-1-1

‘The Spoils’, 2017. Mixed metal sculpture, by Laura Antebi, 2017. Metal sculpture painted to look like wood; shaped like an egg timer. The egg timer element and the portion of stainless steel at the centre of the piece were manufactured by Colin McInnes of Duncan McInnes Limited (Kilmarnock). The tiny sculptures were made from milliput resin putty and painted with acrylic paint. The shell was made from reinforced extra strong plaster and steel egg timer painted and varnished. The small sculptures were attached with stainless steel wire. The artist’s father was a doctor, so she added his surgical scalpel (blunted) and clamps. Any silver paint on the small sculptures is car paint metallic silver. The shell is layers of umber acrylic very dilute colour over gold gloss metallic paint This sculpture was commissioned in order to illustrate the development of stainless steel - Though unsuitable for the manufacture of army gun barrels, stainless steel transformed British industry because of its strength, lustre and resistance to corrosion. In 1912, the British metallurgist Harry Brearley, while seeking a corrosion-resistant alloy for gun barrels, discovered and subsequently industrialised a stainless steel alloy. Legend has it that Brearley threw away some of the results of his experiments as failures. They went literally on to the scrap heap - but Brearley noticed later that these discarded samples in the yard had not rusted. Similar developments were being made in the development of a corrosion resistant metal in other countries but Brearley’s work informed development of aero-engines during the war, and later of cutlery and the innumerable medical instruments on which hospitals depend such as scalpels and forceps. Brearley was certainly the pioneer of stainless steel but after he left Brown Firth Research in 1916, it was his successor Dr W H Hatfield who went on to develop a stainless steel which even today is probably the widest used alloy of this type. It is referred to as “18/8” referencing the percentage of chromium and nickel in the steel. These developments revolutionised the cutlery business in Sheffield.