On the 100th anniversary of his birth, we are featuring a small cast bronze sculpture by artist and writer Michael Ayrton (1921- 1975).

This wall-mounted sculpture entitled End Maze III, created in 1970, is just 33 cm high.

One of a limited edition of nine, the sculpture forms part of a series entitled Maze Predicament which reflects the artist’s interest in mythological and classical themes. The work depicts a man escaping from the skeleton of a spiral shell. It is a maquette for a larger sculpture which was never realised.

About The Artist

Michael Ayrton studied at the Heatherly School of Fine Art and the St John’s Wood Art School, before moving to Paris to further his studies. In the 1950s he started working in bronze, and he visited Greece in 1957 with sculptor Henry Moore, who he much admired and who helped him develop his technical skills in bronze sculpture-making.

Ayrton also wrote several non-fiction works on fine art, including Aspects of British Art, 1947 and was an accomplished painter, broadcaster, theatrical designer and film director.

The style and subject-matter of Ayrton’s work is very distinctive. From 1961, he wrote and created many works associated with the myths of the Minotaur and the builder of its maze prison, Daedalus; including bronze sculptures and the pseudo-autobiographical novel The Maze Maker, 1967. Indeed, End Maze III is a depiction of Daedalus.

The End Maze sculptures

The story behind the End Maze sculptures, of which the University’s sculpture is the final version, begins with Ayrton's novel The Maze Maker, published in April 1967, then released in an American edition in October the same year. In proper 'autobiographical' style it includes detailed accounts of how Daedalus accomplished his legendary works, including the building of the labyrinth to contain the Minotaur.

At a cocktail party in New York, given to celebrate the book's success, Ayrton later described meeting a singular gentleman who said he'd read the book. Ayrton replied, “Oh yes?", and the man said, “I want one.” Ayrton said, “I knew nothing about him ... I thought, this man is mad - what does he want?”

The man in question turned out to be Armand Erpf, financial genius, Wall Street millionaire, philanthropist and art enthusiast, and what he wanted was a maze, exactly like the one Ayrton had described. Sceptical at first, Ayrton was soon utterly beguiled by Erpf's enthusiasm, and set out to create a maze worthy of its spectacular setting on Erpf's large estate near Arkville in the Catskill mountains.

The work took about eighteen months to complete; about a year later Erpf invited Ayrton back to Arkville to add a second element to the complex - which is where End Maze comes in.

Erpf owned a collection of large granite urns, which had been placed to create an avenue leading away from the Ayrton maze. His idea was to have another maze at the far end of the avenue, this time of a unicursal pattern, where following the paths led unerringly to the centre - the Jerusalem maze often found in churches and so-called because in the Middle Ages tracing the pathway (generally on your knees) could stand in for a pilgrimage to the Holy City. This was to have a third large sculpture, balancing the two in the labyrinth as the mazes, pagan and Christian, would balance each other.

End Maze III is the depiction of Daedalus leaving the maze. Ayrton wrote this about the sculpture that would become End Maze:

“Emerging Figure

Relate Icarus to Daedalus as one.

*The Minotaur, horns fallen to the ground at his feet, emerges as fully human; as a part of the Mazemaker come out of the maze. *

Contain all in one figure.

Wingform as maze matrix.”

There is an early drawing in which the horns actually lie at the feet of the figure. But as he moved from drawing to sculpture the design became simpler - a figure stepping forward out of a wing of dark bronze patterned with a second wing-like form, brightly polished, shaped like the famous double axe of the Minoans, the labrys, from which the word labyrinth is supposed to have been derived. Into this backplate Ayrton embedded a shell of the Chambered Nautilus - a creature which fascinated him by the way that it secretes around itself in the course of its life a shell composed of chambers in a logarithmic spiral which act both as protection and as an aid to buoyancy. In this natural process he found a direct analogy to his belief, developed in The Maze Maker, that “any man ... builds in and around himself a maze of circumstances and experiences ... this, it seems to me, we all do.”

End Maze III is the last and most fully developed of the maquettes, or models: the figure steps away from the wall - out of the labyrinth - but the shell wraps across him and holds him back. The maze, for Ayrton, was always ambiguous, a place of sanctuary as well as imprisonment, so that to escape from it is to return - wishing to return. This is the 'Maze Predicament' which preoccupied him for several years, resulting in a number of sculptures and paintings.

The Artist’s Connection with the University of Exeter

The University of Exeter acquired End Maze III in 1973. Michael Ayrton gave the 7th Jackson Knight Memorial Lecture in May 1973, entitled 'A Meaning to the Maze', which gave some context to the work.

The University of Exeter confirmed the bestowal of an Honorary Degree on Michael Ayrton in 1975, but unfortunately he passed away before it could be conferred upon him. The Honorary Degree was finally confirmed in December 1976. He is believed to have been the only person to have had an Honorary Degree awarded posthumously at Exeter.

More about the artist and his work

Further work by Michael Ayrton can be seen locally at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter and nationally at the Tate and National Portrait Galleries, London and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Find out more about Michael Ayrton on his Wikipedia page here.

View a series of images of End Maze III on the Artuk website here

Later in 2021 it is hoped that two exhibitions of Michael Ayrton’s work, commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth, will be taking place. Additionally a new Michael Ayrton website will be launched by his Estate.

The University would like to extend its thanks to the Estate of Michael Ayrton for providing information and images for this article.