Sculptor. His father was the broadcaster and journalist Richard Dimbleby (1913–1965) 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).
Bibliography: T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Kensington and Chelsea with Westminster South-West, Watford, 2023, pp. 41–44; Nicholas Dimbleby website; G.T. Noszlopy, Public Sculpture of Warwickshire, Coventry & Solihull, Liverpool, 2003, pp. 99–100.
Terry Cavanagh November 2022