1906 - 1985

Sculptor. Born in Osijek, in east Croatia, son of a Jewish pharmaceuticals manufacturer. After an unsuccessful application to the Vienna Academy, Nemon obtained a bursary in 1925 from his home-town to study at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Brussels. There he shared a house with the painter René Magritte. In 1928 he made a Monument to the June Victims, for Osijek. On the 75th birthday of Sigmund Freud in 1930 he was, exceptionally, permitted to take the psychologist’s portrait from the life, and he produced the model for the portrait statue, which, 40 years later was cast in bronze and erected at Swiss Cottage, London. Nemon’s portraits from this time were exhibited at the Monteau Gallery in Brussels in 1934, and again in 1939. In 1939 he took refuge from Nazi persecution in England, where he settled in Oxford. Nemon, who became naturalised in 1948, was befriended by two leading lights of the museum world, Sir John Rothenstein and Sir Karl Parker. The gravity of his portraits and the charm of his personality soon secured him important commissions for portraits of the Royal Family, politicians and commanders of the armed forces. For Westminster he executed the statues of Lord Portal (1975) and Field Marshal Montgomery (1980). In all, 12 statues by Nemon of Winston Churchill are to be found in diverse locations on either side of the Atlantic. His last major work, a Royal Canadian Air Force Memorial, was unveiled by the Queen in Toronto in 1984. A retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 1982. At the time of his death he was working on a portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales.