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Ivor Roberts-Jones

1913 - 1996

Sculptor. Born at Oswestry (Salop), he studied at Goldsmiths’ College and the Royal Academy Schools. He served with the Jungle Field Artillery in Burma during World War II, and, after demobilisation, took a part-time post at Goldsmiths’ College, becoming head of the sculpture department there in 1964. Before commissions for public sculpture came his way, Roberts-Jones explored generic themes, in what have been described as the Clown Series, the Smiling Woman Series and the Coiffured Female Head Series. Later, he experimented with sculptured still-lives and with sculpture incorporated or growing out of miniature landscapes. The purchase by the Tate Gallery in 1960 of his bust of the French playwright, Paul Claudel (1957), helped to establish his reputation as a portrait artist, and led on to further private and public commissions. The public ones included a Memorial to Augustus John for Fordingbridge (1967), and a number of commissions for portraits of eminent Welshmen from the Welsh National Portrait Collection, beginning in 1978. The most prominent of his public works was the statue of Winston Churchill (1973) for Parliament Square. Other versions of this were subsequently erected in Oslo, New Orleans and Prague. Later came the statues of Clement Attlee (1979) for the House of Common, and the statues of Viscounts Slim and Alanbrooke (1990 and 1993) for Whitehall. Drawing and sculpting animals was a continual preoccupation of Roberts-Jones, and between 1974 and 1983, he created a series of imaginary “Riders”, one of which, the Harlech Rider, was commissioned for the town of Harlech by the Welsh Arts Council.

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