ABSTRACT
A sculptor also known for his painting in oils and watercolours, wood engravings, etchings and writings on art. He studied drawing at the Regent Street Polytechnic (1907-10), painting at the RCA (1910-13) and drawing at the Slade School of Art (1919-20), following four years of military service. He taught for three years at the RCA (1920-3) and in 1921 he opened his own school, Brook Green School of Drawing, which he continued until 1938. Among those he taught were Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Eileen Agar and Gertude Hermes. He began to make sculpture at this time, his Torso (1923, Tournai marble) and Torso (1923-4, Mansfield stone), owing much to the influence of Eric Gill. He travelled widely, visiting Iceland, Paris (where he first bought African sculpture), Altamira (1925), Mexico (1928) and West Africa (1945). His first solo exhibition was at the Chenil Gallery (1921) and he regularly exhibited at the NEAC. His interest in tribal and non-European art was further developed following his travels in Mexico, after which motifs from pre-Columbian American art predominated in his work in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Regenesis (1930) and Minds lace (1934) have similar characteristics to the work of Henry Moore of the same period. Although he was interested in Surrealism during the 1930s, critical attention to his role as a pioneer of twentieth-century British sculpture tended to diminish over the years. His work is represented in the Tate Gallery (Torso: the June of Youth, 1937, bronze; Herald of New Day, 1932-3, plaster). The Arts Council Collection includes The Juggler (1955, bronze). In 1931 he founded the magazine The Island, which ran for four issues. He published several books on African sculpture, including Bronzes of West Africa, London, 1949. Later in his life he exhibited bronzes on Biblical subjects at the Kaplan Gallery, and in 1969 a retrospective was held at Colchester.
