Anthony Smith (b. 1984)

Sculptor born in Glasgow, now based in Amsterdam. He first attended Winchester College, before going on to Christ’s College, Cambridge, to study zoology, specialising in animal behaviour and evolution. Having learnt to sculpt at school, he further developed his skills as a sculptor in his spare time from his university studies, casting and exhibiting limited edition bronze sculptures. After graduating in 2005, he set up his own studio in Cambridge and began sculpting full-time. In 2009–10, he took part in an eight-month circumnavigation voyage aboard a three-masted clipper, working as ship’s artist and photographer for a Dutch-Flemish television documentary series, Beagle: In het kielzog van Darwin (‘Beagle: In Darwin’s wake’), retracing the route described by Darwin in his Voyage of the Beagle (published 1839). In 2012, Smith was awarded a Shackleton Scholarship to visit the Falkland Islands as artist-in-residence; and this was followed, in 2013, by two months on South George, again as artist-in-residence, this time at the invitation of the South Georgia Heritage Trust. Smith is now based in Amsterdam. His first major commission was for a portrait bust of Carl Linnaeus for the Linnean Society of London (2007). His statue of the young Charles Darwin was unveiled by the Duke of Edinburgh at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 2009 (shortlisted for the PMSA Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture) and his statue of Alfred Russel Wallace was unveiled by Sir David Attenborough in the Natural History Museum in 2013. Smith is an ARBS and a fellow of the Linnean Society.

Sources: Anthony Smith website; ‘Anthony Smith (sculptor)’, Wikipedia; ‘Beagle: In Darwin’s Wake’, Wikipedia; ‘Sculptor in Residence’, South Georgia Newsletter, September 2013.

Terry Cavanagh November 2022