Building Job
- Artist: Peter László Peri
- Date: 1937
- Medium: Concrete and steel
- Dimensions: object: 870 x 510 x 190 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Building Job” by Peter László Peri. It’s a concrete‑and‑steel relief from 1937 that shows two workmen supervising the lowering of an I‑beam girder. The foreground figure raises his hand to guide the other worker in the background, showing how the girder should be lowered.
Peri crafted this piece while living in London after moving there from Budapest in 1933. He worked directly with wet concrete, layering “pericrete” – a mix of river sand and Portland cement – on a wire framework until the details set. The colours were integral to the material; he used commercially available coloured cements.
In the 1930s Peri produced a series of such reliefs that celebrated ordinary London labour. He exhibited with the Artists International Association, emphasising “people, the way they live and their relationships.” “Building Job” is one of those works that capture a slice of everyday construction life in early‑modern Britain.
See it in person
Building Job is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
