Tucker’s Gymnast series was inspired by the movement of the human body, specifically the athlete’s body. Created in 1985, the year after the Los Angeles Olympics, Tucker cites the gymnasts on the rings and parallel bars as a visual source for this work, with a particular interest in the way their bodies become simplified into two moving and rigid halves. Gymnast III is not concerned with rendering the body realistically or the nuances of skin, muscle, and bone. Instead, Tucker attempts to manifest the body’s physical sensations, such as fatigue, pain, exertion, stretching, or the force of hard landing. The work resides in a space between object and gesture, suggesting the body’s most elemental shapes as well as its most visceral feelings. The sculpture does not specifically represent a jointed ankle or wrist, for example, but conveys the look and motion of a bend or flex.  

Mass and movement are qualities Tucker has explored widely throughout his career. They can seem contradictory, particularly in bronze artwork of this size. However, Tucker’s organic form manages to imply movement while still evoking solidity and weight. The bend of the lower section and upward curve of the top indicate not just motion but flexibility. The work’s composition is minimal, yet it possesses an organic, biomorphic quality that differs significantly from the more industrial or polished artworks in the Pappajohn Sculpture Park. Tucker’s early sculpture was abstract, architectural, and often constructed from metal and wood. In the early 1980s, however, he was strongly influenced by the Riace Bronzes, a famed pair of ancient Greek warrior statues. Struck by how life-like the works seemed, Tucker began to strive for a similar vitality in contemporary figuration. He also began modelling work in plaster (later to be cast in bronze), intrigued by how the material captured the marks and molding of the artist’s hands. The textured surface of Gymnast III illustrates this technique and places Tucker’s art in the tradition of Auguste Rodin, who innovated sculpture in the 19th century by casting in bronze his own expressively modelled figures originally made in plaster or clay. Other works made in the 1980s referred to Greek gods and similar mythological figures, and it is unsurprising that the classical physiques of Olympic athletes might catch his attention after he had long studied their sculptural precedents.