Sculptor and printmaker born on 15 March 1918 in Manchester, the eldest son of the architect, Joshua Crampton. He first studied silversmithing at the Vittoria Junior School of Art, Birmingham, 1930–33, then attended Birmingham’s Central College of Art before going to Paris where he worked for a number of years in Fernand Léger’s studio. On the outbreak of the Second World War, he returned to England. Already a member of the Territorial Army he was commissioned to serve in the London Irish Rifles. He saw active service in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. In Sicily in July 1943, Crampton, by this time a second lieutenant, was awarded the Military Cross for displaying ‘great gallantry and extremely high powers of leadership and devotion to duty’ (London Gazette). Six months later, in January 1944, while leading a reconnaissance mission, he stepped on a landmine. The official citation records that the moment Crampton felt his foot touch the igniter, he kept it pressed down, shouted to his men to take cover and, by virtue of allowing his foot to take the full force of the blast, prevented the mine from rising into the air, thereby saving the lives of his men, all of whom escaped without injury. Crampton, however, lost his foot. For this act of selfless bravery he was awarded the George Medal. After a long period of rehabilitation he resumed his career as an artist-craftsman and teacher. From 1946 to 1950 he was Professeur de Sculpture at the Anglo-French Art Centre in St John’s Wood, London. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1953 (a Fellow in 1965 and President, 1966–71). He was a member of the Art Workers’ Guild from 1971 (and was elected Master in 1978). He had 17 one-man shows in various commercial galleries in London’s West End. The gallery with which he was associated for the longest time was the Alwin in Brook Street; the centrepiece of its opening show in 1965 was Crampton’s life-size Horseman for which he gained the RBS silver medal. Crampton made just four appearances at the Royal Academy, in 1955, 1965, 1969 and 1994, and was included in the first Royal West of England Academy Open Sculpture Exhibition in 1993. His interest in the world of the spirit and his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1975 informs much of his work. He lived in Rookery Farmhouse, Calne, Wiltshire, from 1977, producing one of his most important works, the Stations of the Cross, a series of fourteen groups in welded phosphor bronze (his preferred medium), for his local church, St Edmund’s (1983–86); the cycle was awarded the RBS Otto Beit medal for ‘The sculpture of outstanding merit of the year 1986 exhibited outside London’. The Stations were joined in 1999 by another group in the same medium, The Annunciation (1995). His secular commissions include Little Flute Player, Solihull Library (courtyard), West Midlands (bronze, 1950s); Simon de Montfort, Leicestershire County Hall, Glenfield (welded phosphor bronze, 1967); The Three Judges, Churchill College, Cambridge (bronze, 1970); Figure of Stability, St John’s Park, Burgess Hill, West Sussex (bronze, 1971); and Two Geese, Goose Green, Altrincham, Greater Manchester (phosphor bronze, 1982; Civic Trust Award, 1984). He died at Calne on 16 July 1999, and was survived by his third wife, Patricia (née Wood), whom he had married in 1959, their son and daughter, and three daughters from his previous marriages.
Bibliography: C. Bailey, ‘Sean Crampton’, The Guardian (online edn), 19 August 1999; D. Buckman, Artists in Britain since 1945 (2 vols: A–L, M–Z), Bristol, 2006; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Leicestershire and Rutland, Liverpool, 2000, p. 55; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, p. 364; N. Dewey, ‘Obituary: Sean Crampton’, The Independent (online edn), 22 July 1999; G.T. Noszlopy, Public Sculpture of Warwickshire, Coventry & Solihull, Liverpool, 2003, pp. 210–11; J. Seddon et al, Public Sculpture of Sussex, Liverpool, 2014, pp. 108, 149; The Times, 24 July 1999, p. 24 (obituary); Who Was Who (online edn); T. Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, Liverpool, 2004, p. 386.
Terry Cavanagh, 2000; revised, February 2025