I happened upon Jacob Epstein’s Italian Peasant Woman in Shawl recently, part of the remarkable sculptures in the Ingram Collection of Modern British Art assembled by media entrepreneur Chris Ingram, who has enabled his home town of Woking to see art which might normally grace the likes of Tate Britain, via its loan to the Marks […]
Category: portrait sitters
2011 works: The Human Clay exhibition
University of Surrey has a vibrant Public arts programme with 30 sculptures and busts around the campus, including works by Bridget McCrum, John Mills, Diane Maclean and William Pye. Jon Edgar’s solo exhibition there in Nov/Dec 2011 was linked with his Surrey Sculpture Society Autumn lecture, to which about 75 attended. For those that did […]
Dick Barton, the mapping of South Georgia… and a solitude experiment
In 1951 Duncan Carse, the voice of ‘Dick Barton – Special Agent’, a BBC serial thriller with a huge daily audience, abruptly gave up his radio acting career to lead a six-man private Antarctic expedition during 1951-52 that planned to make the first accurate map of South Georgia. It failed to achieve this, but Carse organised a […]
On the tradition of pre-conceiving sculpture
This short clip is part of a Documentary film by Anna Thornhill. It features archive footage of sculptor Alan Thornhill working on a sculpture in Putney in 1989 and the resulting work, Exodus, some 20 years later at Kingscote Park in Gloucestershire. Thornhill’s self-devised method of improvisation using clay allowed him to abandon the use of the sculpture […]
The Environment Series Heads
In 2006, the first of the ENVIRONMENT SERIES portrait sittings began as a logical extension to the invitations to people whose work or stance I admired. The head of Lady Philippa Scott, with her husband Peter Scott a formidable partnership for wetland conservation from their Slimbridge home, had been one of the earliest heads in […]
The human clay: Compton
It was magical to discover that the painter I studied with at The Frink School (and recently visited in Edinburgh) Ruth Addinall, had come across artist Mary Wondrausch‘s wonderful book Brickfields and corresponded with her. Wondrausch’s slipware has a historical resonance and is in the V&A Collection, but her broader talents have resulted in a house and […]
How to Make a Difference
An article by Fran Monks after an interview conducted with Jon Edgar during the Chawton ‘Sculpture in the Wilderness’ exhibition, 2010. http://howtomakeadifference.net/2010/10/jon-edgar/
Scott bronze to Slimbridge
Lady Philippa Scott sat as part of my environmental series of heads in early 2007. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust – that she and husband Peter Scott had been so instrumental in founding – have just taken delivery of a bronze of the terracotta head, which will be unveiled in summer 2011. This will commemorate […]
Memory and Desire Film
Possibly the only time I’m ever going to appear in a principal cast list after Nick Rhodes… http://www.britfilms.com/britishfilms/catalogue/browse/?id=9F210A5C18bbd27D1CYtWJ498BC0 The sitting took place in North London in 2008 following an approach from the artist. This is the second of two bronzes created from the terracotta original.
Portrait Sculpture – a neglected form?
see here: ‘Jackdaw article Dec 2009 ‘Portrait Sculpture – A neglected form?’ for subscriptions to this publication for the visual arts: http://www.thejackdaw.co.uk/
Lilac Time CD album cover
New CD cover for the Memory and Desire album by Stephen Duffy and The Lilac Time, using the fired terracotta head.
Duncan Carse – South Georgia
The first bronze of Duncan Carse is now on permanent display at South Georgia Museum, South Atlantic, following a purchase appeal co-ordinated by the South Georgia Association. The role of Duncan Carse in the Grahamland Peninsular Expedition was recognised by the Silver Polar Medal and clasp in 1939. He was awarded a second clasp in 1982 […]
New film – Spirit in Mass: Alan Thornhill
SPIRIT IN MASS: Journey into Sculpture is a 40 minute documentary which charts Alan Thornhill’s unconventional journey into sculpture. Discovering himself to be by nature an improviser yet committed to the time-honoured language and sensuous values of sculpture, he devised a way of working which embraced spontaneity and the unforeseen. This approach has inspired sculpture students […]