Sculptor, stone carver, letter-cutter, conservator and teacher, born in Washbrook, Suffolk, the son of Alfred John Green (1909–1943), a master mason with Saunders Ltd (stonemasons) of Ipswich. While still a child, Green was taught to use tools by his father. After leaving St Joseph’s College, Ipswich, he served a five-year apprenticeship with a local stonemason, gaining his Master Mason certificate in 1951. He continued his training firstly at Ipswich School of Art, 1951–54, where he gained a first-class diploma in sculpture and a silver medal, and subsequently at the Royal College of Art (RCA), 1954–57, where he graduated with a first-class diploma for stone carving and a silver medal for letter-cutting. During his time at the RCA he met the sculptor Jacob Epstein (1880–1959) who took him on as an assistant from 1955. Green worked on Epstein’s Trades Union Congress War Memorial (Roman stone, 1956–57, Congress House, Russell Street, London) and carved the sculptor’s memorial headstone (Putney Vale cemetery, London). In 1957 he returned to Ipswich School of Art as a part-time tutor (leaving in 1971, but with a second spell, 1984–88). In 1968 he was one of the founders of the Orton Trust – a training centre for stone workers – in Orton, Northamptonshire; he was a senior tutor there, 1969–2004, teaching carving and lettering. For a short period, 1979–80, he was director of monument conservation at Croydon College of Art. Green had a solo exhibition at the John Whibley Gallery, London, in 1971, and was a frequent exhibitor at the Chappel Galleries, Chappel, Essex. His commissions include a 15-foot-high Christ in Portland stone for the Church of the Sacred Heart and St John the Evangelist (RC) in Bushey, Hertfordshire (1957); a Virgin Mary in Portland stone for Our Lady Queen of the Apostles (RC) in Welwyn Garden City; a Virgin and Child in Bath stone for St Mary, Creeting St Mary, Suffolk (1961); the pedestal inscription for William McMillan’s Memorial to Lord Trenchard, Victoria Embankment (1961); the altar in Nabresina limestone and the font and a cycle of the Stations of the Cross in Portland stone, for St Joseph and St Walburga (RC), Branksome, Poole, Dorset (1961–62); Crane’s Tableau, a bronze relief on a brick plinth in Upper Orwell Street, Ipswich (1977); the Memorial to the 6th Lord Henniker, Thornham Magna, Suffolk (1999); and a group in glass-fibre for Kuching Cathedral, Sarawak, Malaysia. He died on 29 June 2017.
Bibliography: D. Buckman, Artists in Britain since 1945 (2 vols: A–L, M–Z), Bristol, 2006; R. Cocke, Public Sculpture of Norfolk and Suffolk, Liverpool, 2013, p. 166; The Daily Express Ipswich Sculpture Trail, 27 December 2008; Stone Specialist: ‘Obituary: John Green (1932–2017)’; Suffolk Artists: ‘Green, John Alfred, 1932–2017)’; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011, p. 363.
Terry Cavanagh, April 2025
