Venezuelan sculptor, born in Rome. Between 1931 and 1935 he was a student at the School of Sacred Art in Rome, while working as an assistant in the workshops of sculptors Torquato Tamagnini and Lorenzo Ferri. In 1939, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, but was conscripted into the Italian army following the outbreak of the Second World War; he resumed his studies after the war and graduated in July 1946. In 1948, he was one of three sculptors selected to represent Italy in the ‘XIV Olympiad Sport in Art’ exhibition at the V&A, London. A photograph of his bronze group, Japanese Wrestlers, was published in the ILN (24 July 1948, p. 93). In 1949, he emigrated to Venezuela and embarked upon a successful career producing statues of military heroes and liberators, most notably of Simon Bolivar, with standing statues in Caracas and in Belgrave Square, London, and equestrian statues in Barinas, Colón, Píritu and Turén, Venezuela; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Brussels, Belgium. Daini’s other commission, mostly in Venezuela, include monuments to the Founders of Cumaná, 1967, Cumaná, to the Venezuelan Soldier, 1971, Campo de Carabobo, Valencia, and to the First Republic, 1974, National Pantheon, Caracas.
Sources: Venezuela e Historia; Wikihistoria del Arte Venezolano
T. Cavanagh November 2022
Sculptor originating in Brussels. He worked in England as an assistant to Grinling Gibbons and, with Laurens van der Meulen, ‘modelled and made’ Gibbons’s statue of James II, Trafalgar Square, and probably cast his Charles II, Royal Hospital Chelsea (both c.1685/86). According to George Vertue, Dieveot ‘left England in the troubles of the Revolution’ (1688–89). He returned to Brussels, where in 1695 he was master of the Quatre-Couronnés, the guild of stonemasons and sculptors, and enjoyed a successful career as a sculptor.
Sources: Vertue, G., Vol. IV, Walpole Society, no xxiv, 1935/36, p. 50; Ward-Jackson, P., Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011; Wikipedia.
T. Cavanagh November 2022
Sculptor. His father was the broadcaster and journalist Richard Dimbleby (1913–65) and his older brothers, the broadcasters David and Jonathan Dimbleby. He studied sculpture from 1968, initially at Edinburgh College Art and subsequently at Goldsmith’s and Central St Martin’s where he took his degree in Fine Art. Dimbleby began working as an assistant to the abstract sculptor William Pye, but once he had set up independently returned to figurative sculpture, his first interest. Dimbleby’s chief public sculpture commissions include Elephant Seat, Leamington Spa, installed in Whitehead Court shopping centre, 1988, relocated to Jefferson Gardens, 2008; Captain Cook as a Youth, Great Ayton, Hambleton District, North Yorkshire, 1997; memorial plaque to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, St Marylebone parish church, 2006; portrait statues of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 2005, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Christie Hennessy, Tralee, County Kerry, 2008, and Jimmy Hill, Ricoh Arena, Coventry, 2011; and war memorials at Cranleigh School, Surrey (‘Leaving’, 2016) and Aviva headquarters, City of London (‘Absent’, 2018). He also modelled his father’s memorial plaque for Westminster Abbey (dedicated 1990).
Principal source: Nicholas Dimbleby website.
T. Cavanagh November 2022
Painter, illustrator and sculptor, principally of wildlife, an interest nurtured by childhood trips to the London Zoo with his father who had been commissioned to photograph the animals. Dixon began his studies at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, but from 1883 to 1887 was in Paris, studying at the Académie Julian and in the studios of Bouguereau and Lefebvre. He carved four stone Lions for T.E. Collcutt’s Imperial Institute, South Kensington, 1887–93; following the demolition of the greater part of the buildings, 1956–65, two of the Lions were re-erected in front of the only significant survivor of the demolition, the Queen’s Tower, and two were relocated to the Commonwealth Institute (now in the grounds of Clarence House). Dixon exhibited both paintings and sculptures at the RA from 1885. In 1891, his watercolour, Lions, was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate. He was a member of the AWG from 1891 (resigned 1898) and of the RBS from 1905.
Sources: Mapping Sculpture; Oxford Art Online – Benezit Dictionary of Artists.
T. Cavanagh November 2022
Pottery established by John Doulton at Lambeth as Doulton & Watts, which name it retained until 1851, specialising in utilitarian stoneware. In the late 1830s the firm extended its range to include architectural sculpture and garden ornaments in terracotta, some of it designed by the sculptor Samuel Nixon. In 1858, the firm became Henry Doulton & Co and c.1860 began to revive earlier types of stoneware producing, from 1862, its famous salt-glazed wares with blue decorations. From 1866, the firm enjoyed a close association with John Sparkes and the Lambeth School of Art where many of its finest artists were trained, including George Tinworth, John Broad and Herbert Ellis. In 1884, the firm opened a porcelain factory at Burslem, Staffs. W.J. Neatby joined as head of the architectural department in 1889. In 1899, Doulton’s became a limited company and in 1901 was granted a royal warrant, entitling the pottery to style itself Royal Doulton. The Lambeth works was finally closed down in 1956. In addition to art pottery and architectural sculpture, Doulton’s produced a number of large-scale fountains and memorial statues.
Sources: Atterbury, P., and L. Irvine, The Doulton Story. A souvenir booklet produced originally for the exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 30 May–12 August 1979, Stoke on Trent, 1979; Eyles, D., The Lambeth Doulton Wares (rev. L. Irvine), Shepton Beauchamp, Somerset, 2002; Fleming, J., and H. Honour, The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts, London, 1977, rev. edn. 1989.
T. Cavanagh November 2022
Sculptor and potter, born in London of German descent. He studied modelling under Lantéri at the National Art Training School, and also with Boehm and in France. He modelled a terracotta bust of Ruskin (RA 1885, no 2009) and in 1886 stayed with him at Coniston, receiving encouragement which influenced his stylistic development. Portrait busts were to be a major part of Dressler’s output; fine examples include William Morris, 1892, AWG, London; The Artist’s Wife, Nita Maria Schonfeld Resch, 1898, painted terracotta, V&A; Marianne North, marble, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His architectural sculpture includes two relief panels in Ketton stone – Boy and Lanthorn and Lioness – for the porches of C.F.A. Voyseys’ 14 and 16 Hans Road, Kensington (1891–92) and two relief panels in Istrian stone for a series symbolising National Prosperity on St George’s Hall, Liverpool (1895). While still living at the family home at Glebe Place, Chelsea, Dressler met William de Morgan, who fired some of his early works. Dressler also set up his own foundry in Chelsea and carried out some cire perdu casting. In December 1893 he set up the Della Robbia Pottery at Birkenhead with Harold Rathbone. By 1897, he had moved to Marlow where he established the Medmenham Pottery which specialised in architectural tiles and large wall panels; it was here that he created the two faience friezes, The History of Hygiene, for Lever Brothers’ Sunlight Chambers, Dublin. He exhibited at the RA from 1883; in 1891 he was a founder member of the Chelsea Arts Club and was elected a member of the AWG, and in 1905, FRBS.
Sources: Beattie, S., The New Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1983; Mapping Sculpture; Miller, F., ‘A Sculptor-Potter: Mr Conrad Dressler, The Artist, 1900, pp. 169–76; Walker, R.P., ‘Conrad Dressler and the Medmenham Pottery’, The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society …, No. 18, 1994, pp. 50–60.
T. Cavanagh November 2022
Sculptor and painter. Born in London, Drury studied sculpture at the National Art Training School, South Kensington, under the French instructors, Jules Dalou and Edouard Lantéri. Between 1881 and 1885, he worked in Dalou’s Paris studio as an assistant, and, on returning to London, showed at the Royal Academy a Triumph of Silenus, which was strongly marked by the French sculptor’s influence. Work with J.E. Boehm and emulation of his contemporaries, such as Alfred Gilbert and George Frampton, helped him to form his own style. For his poetic pieces and allegories, Drury invented a characteristic female type. This proved most popular in the fanciful and dreamy busts of young girls, entitled Griselda and The Age of Innocence, both of which were frequently reproduced in bronze. A similar theme is given full-length realisation in the scantily clad lamp-holding female figures representing Morn and Even, which Drury sculpted for City Square, Leeds (1896). At the Paris International Exhibition of 1900, he won a gold medal for his statue of Circe, a bronze cast of which belongs to Leeds City Art Gallery. Drury’s many architectural commissions include colossal allegorical groups in stone on the War Office in Whitehall (1904) and four colossal female allegories in bronze on the downstream side of Vauxhall Bridge (1904–07). In commemorating the fallen of the South African War, Drury chose for Clifton College, Bristol, a ‘symbolic’ figure of St George (1904–05), and for Warrington, Lancs., a contemporary soldier of the South Lancashire Regiment (1907). A similar range of subject is found in his eight First World War memorials, that at Kidderminster, Worcs. (1922) being perhaps the most inventive in its combination of allegory and reality, and its inclusion of members of a grateful future generation. His most successful public statues were of historical figures, Richard Hooker for Exeter (1907), Elizabeth Fryfor the Old Bailey (1913), and Joshua Reynolds for the forecourt of Burlington House. Drury was often assisted in his old age by his son, the etcher, Paul Drury.
Sources: Beattie, S., New Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1983; Cavanagh, T., Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007; Ward-Jackson, P., Public Sculpture of the City of London, Liverpool, 2003; Winfrey, J., ‘Leeds City Square: T. Walter Harding and the realisation of a sculptural vision’, in Sculpting Art History, Essays in Memory of Benedict Read (eds. K. Eustace et al), London, 2013, pp. 218–33.
Philip Ward-Jackson, 2023
Mildred Norris Laker, Alfred Drury,, c. 1906-11, bromide print (photo: © National Portrait Gallery, London).
Nothing is known for certain of Dujardin, apart from the fact that whoever he was, he was an accomplished sculptor with a developed skill in the special discipline of modelling in clay for baking as terracotta by the time he began work on the Natural History Museum terracottas in the early 1870s. The ‘M’ preceding his surname merely stands for ‘Monsieur’; the Building News referred to him as Mr. Du Jardin. To date, two possible identities, neither totally compelling, have been suggested. The first is Auguste Dujardin (born 1847 in Paris; d. c.1918), who showed a marble medallion at the Salon of 1866 and worked as an architectural sculptor at Metz. The second, Edouard Romain Dujardin (born c.1829 in Rouen; d. 1885 in London), is recorded living at addresses in Lambeth (c.1861) and Camberwell (1884–85). Although listed in the census returns as a wood sculptor/carver (he submitted two wood carvings, Dog’s head and Birds and flowers, to a competition for art workmen arranged by the Society of Arts in 1867) he also submitted a model in plaster, Panel of spring flowers, to the same competition in 1868 and a terracotta sculpture, Gossiping, to the RA in 1884. These examples show at least that animals and flowers were within this Dujardin’s range. A third possibility has arisen with the Natural History Museum’s archive’s acquisition in 2003 of a volume of drawings relating to the museum’s sculptural decoration, entitled: ‘Some details of the enrichments of the new Museum of Natural History (South Kensington) modelled by C. Dujardin for A. Waterhouse …’. Of C. Dujardin – supposing the initial to be correctly recorded – there is no reference anywhere else. A possible reason for the ostensible disappearance from English records of such a highly skilled artist in terracotta immediately after the completion of the Natural History Museum scheme may be that he went to the USA, where the demand for his services was greater and more remunerative.
Sources: Cunningham, C., The Terracotta Designs of Alfred Waterhouse, Chichester, West Sussex, 2001; Mapping Sculpture; Natural History Museum Library & Archives; Yanni, C., ‘Divine Display or Secular Science. Defining nature at the Natural History Museum in London’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 55, no. 3, September 1996, pp. 276–98.
T. Cavanagh November 2022
Sculptor and engraver chiefly of mythological subjects who was born and lived all his life in Paris. His father, François Dumont, was a sculptor, as was his son, Jacques-Edme Dumont. He trained under Edme Bouchardon and won the Prix de Rome for sculpture in 1748 (though never visited Italy). In 1752, while still a student at the École des Elèves Protégés, he was accepted by the Académie Royale, but only received as a full member in 1768 on presentation of his marble reception piece, Milo of Croton (h. 0.78cm; Louvre). Dumont exhibited at the Paris Salon, 1753–71; his major works include Cephalus contemplates the present from Procris and Diana and Endymion asleep. He also executed pedimental sculptures for the Manufacture de Sèvres and the Hôtel de la Monnaie, Paris.
Sources: Oxford Art Online – Benezit Dictionary of Artists; Oxford Art Online – Grove Art Online.
T. Cavanagh November 2022
French School, 18th century, Edme Dumont, oil on canvas. (photo: public domain)
Sculptor. Born in London, he was apprenticed to the sculptor John Francis, and, after becoming free, worked in the studio of Edward Hodges Baily. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1835. Twenty years later, the Art Journal claimed that Durham had not yet achieved celebrity. However, in 1856 his bust of Queen Victoria was presented to the Guildhall, and he received the first of two commissions for statues illustrating subjects taken from English literature, for the Mansion House. Durham was the sculptor chosen in 1858 to create the Memorial to the Great Exhibition. This eventually took the form of a statue of Prince Albert, erected in the Gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1863. With its accompanying seated personifications of Europe, Asia, Africa and America, this still stands close to its original site, behind the Royal Albert Hall. In 2019, Durham’s earlier project for this memorial, an electrotype bronze (dated 1862) of Queen Victoria as Peace, was found to be standing in Friary Park, Friern Barnet, London, where it had been erected in 1911 as a memorial to Edward VII. Durham chiefly distinguished himself with his single figures and groups of children. Some of these were of purely imaginary or literary inspiration. Others, such as Waiting his Innings (marble, 1866, Collection of the Corporation of the City of London), functioned both as genre subject and as portrait. Durham was also noted for the sculpture he provided for another distinctively Victorian monument type, the drinking fountain. He had received no formal training, and though elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1868, never became a full RA.
Sources: Darby, E., ‘The Memorial to the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations and a missing statue of Queen Victoria’, Sculpture Journal, Vol. IX, 2003, pp. 72–89; Roscoe, I., et al, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660–1851, New Haven and London, 2009.
Philip Ward-Jackson, 2023
Joseph Durham published 1878, Lock & Whitfield Sampson Low, Marston Searle and Rivington, woodburytype (photo:© National Portrait Gallery, London).
