MUNCIE, Ind. - Bronze beauties and beasts by British sculptor Lynn Chadwick sit, recline, stand, walk and watch from inside and outside the Ball State University Museum of Art this fall.

"Lynn Chadwick: Sculptural Revelations" features 22 works from the world-famous artist's five-decade career in an indoor/outdoor traveling exhibition visiting campus through Feb. 13.

The show comes from the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. It is organized and circulated by International Art and Artists, Washington, D.C.

Selections represent Chadwick's work from 1954 to 1984. A more recent piece, "High Wind IV" from 1995, stands near Ball State's Administration Building and will remain on campus for two years.

Larger works positioned around the university quadrangle are "The Watchers," "Diamond," "Three Elektras" and "Cloaked Figure IV." "Walking Woman" stands across Riverside Avenue north of the Fine Arts Building, while smaller works and lithographs await visitors in the museum's upper-level east gallery.

Chadwick's works range from pure abstraction with pyramids, cylindrical forms and tripods to strong animal forms known as beasts. His characteristic figures explore the form seated, striding, climbing or majestically static enveloped by cloaks.

Visitors who encounter Chadwick's works are "engaged by their presence and delighted by their surfaces," said Lisa Tremper Barnes, director of the Berman Museum of Art.

"One is drawn to the strong, monumental quality of the bronzes which are at times intimidating, certainly intriguing, yet also familiar," Barnes wrote in the exhibition catalog. "More often than not, visitors interact with the large-scale forms, fingering the smooth abdomen of the 'Elektra' or the angular folds of the extended drapes of 'Walking Woman.'"

Chadwick's surfaces capture light and shadow, articulating and adding texture to the planes of metal.

His complex but approachable figures feature massive torsos supported by precariously thin legs. The designs reflect his knowledge of and attention to internal structure and balance that came from his early education in architectural design.

Chadwick was self-taught in the technical and compositional aspects of sculpture and spent his early years training and working as a draftsman with architectural firms in London.

After serving in the Royal Navy, he designed his first mobile with sculptural forms. He continued to create mobiles and stabiles of metal and wood as he made the transition from producing textile, furniture and structural designs.

Chadwick produced his first solid sculptures in 1953, and three years later he won the prestigious International Prize for Sculpture at the XXVIII Biennale in Venice.

"This recognition, at a relatively young age and at the genesis of his career, was an acknowledgement by the larger art community of Chadwick's place in the realm of 20th-century sculpture as well as of his potential," Barnes said.

Chadwick has been the subject of one-person exhibitions over the past five decades. His work appears in public collections worldwide, including several venues in the United States and United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, South America and Asia.

"It is a remarkable testament to the creative drive that in his 80s Lynn Chadwick continued to explore three-dimensional composition, the power of the figure, and expand his repertoire of mediums," Barnes said.

Admission to the Ball State University Museum of Art is free. Museum hours are from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The museum is closed on university holidays. Phone: (765) 285-5242.

By Ted Buck, Communications Manager