Public Commemoration and Representation Post-1945: The Sculpture of Ivor Roberts-Jones (1913-1996)

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This project seeks to enhance understanding of post-1945 public sculpture in Britain through the first in-depth critical study of the artistic production of Welsh-born sculptor Ivor Roberts-Jones RA (1913-1996): a founder member, in 1953, of the Society of Portrait Sculptors and a champion of traditional figurative sculptural forms. During his career Roberts-Jones was held in high esteem by his artistic peers, within the Royal Academy and by the public at large, for major public commissions in bronze such as: the Augustus John Memorial at Fordingbridge in Hampshire (1964-67), the full-length figure of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, London (1970-73) and the full-length figure of Field Marshal Viscount Slim in Parliament Street, London (1987-1990). His work regularly featured in prominent exhibitions of sculpture embracing a wide variety of media supported by the Arts Council and he received over 25 commissions from the National Museum of Wales to produce portrait heads and busts of prominent Welsh personalities over a quarter of a century. He, furthermore, proved an influential teacher: students of his have produced major UK public sculptures such as: the National Women's Memorial, London by J.W. Mills (2005) and Sir John Betjeman, St. Pancras Railway Station by M. Jennings (2007). In spite of his sculptural achievements and legacy, Roberts-Jones's significant contribution to post-1945 British art and accompanying debates on nation, commemoration, and the purpose of public art, has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Based upon extensive original archival research, including unpublished artist's letters, drawings, annotated photographs and sculpture models, this project will examine the view widely aired at his death that Roberts-Jones produced some of the most impressive and memorable examples of major commemorative public sculpture in bronze in post -1945 Europe. For the first time, his portraiture - in the collections of the National Museum of Wales, the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Gallery, London - and his public memorials will be properly assessed within a Western European modernist sculptural tradition that embraces such distinguished practitioners as: Maillol, Epstein, Frink, Marini and Belsky. In addition, the series of subtle heads of blind subjects Roberts-Jones produced in bronze and plaster between the 1960's and '80's, will be related to a 20th Century tradition of portraiture developed by Fautrier as well as to contemporary debates exploring how the unsighted, or partially sighted, imagine their facial appearance: - what Roberts-Jones termed their 'private geographies.' The project examines Roberts-Jones's portraiture and public commemorative work in relation to current debates surrounding: the nature of 'Britishness'; the evolution of Welsh national identity; the problematic relationship between public art and Britain's imperial past (especially with respect to his imagining of Winston Churchill), and the contribution his monumental figuration made to the formulation of an officially sponsored discourse of supposedly 'heroic' normative masculinity such as his figures of WWII Field Marshals Slim and Alanbrooke. The impact Roberts-Jones had on the future development of representational trends within British sculpture, in his capacity as Head of Sculpture at Goldsmith's College, will also be explored. An assessment will be provided of the artist's legacy and his continuing relevance in relation to the public commemorative sculpture through such contemporary practitioners as N. Boonham, E. Milner, J.W. Mills and M. Jennings.The project will include a series of national and regional exhibitions and displays with accompanying texts, public talks and 2 one-day conferences, It will culminate in a display at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. Through this means, maximised by media coverage, research will be disseminated to an exceptionally broad audience.