Alastair Smart

The lost Victorian who sculpted Churchill

A review of Abstraction and Reality: The Sculpture of Ivor Roberts-Jones, by Jonathan Black and Sara Ayres. This follower of Rodin has a solid legacy, though his most famous commission was 'a most unpleasant business'

‘While some observers were impressed, others felt the depiction of a doddery Churchill propped up on a walking stick unbecoming’ [Getty Images/iStock/Shutterstock] 
issue 16 August 2014

Ivor Roberts-Jones was in many ways the right artist at the wrong time. Had the sculptor been born a few decades earlier and worked in the Victorian age, when statues of the builders and defenders of empire were erected proudly and prolifically across the land, he’d surely have received no end of garlands. As it is, Roberts-Jones (1913–96) found himself constantly battling against artistic fashions and today is barely even talked about.

Born in the Welsh border town of Oswestry, he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy Schools and Goldsmiths College (the latter’s fame as a breeding ground for conceptual excess still a long way into the future). A fledgling career had barely got going before war broke out and Roberts-Jones was posted to India and then Burma, where he served with the Royal Artillery.

His sculptural style was rooted in realism, his hero Rodin; yet, returning to post-war Britain, Roberts-Jones found the vogue was for nuanced figuration straining towards abstraction.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in