George Frampton

Frampton was born on 18 June 1860 in London, where his father was a woodcarver and stonemason.[2] George Frampton began his own working life as a stone carver in 1878, working on the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.[2] Frampton returned to London to study under William Silver Frith at the South London Technical School of Art during 1880 and 1881.[3] He went on to the Royal Academy Schools where, between 1881 and 1887 he won a gold medal and travelling scholarship.[3] While still studying at the Royal Academy, Frampton undertook a number of sculpture commissions including, in 1885, pieces for the facade of both the Constitutional Club in Northumberland Avenue and for the Chelsea Conservative Club.[2] He also created an altarpiece for Manchester Cathedral, some decorative pieces for the Henry Fawcett Memorial in London and a pair of terracotta figures representing Concord and Industry which were exhibited in Paris and purchased for the Municipal Building in Christchurch, New Zealand.[4] From 1887 to 1890 Frampton studied and worked at the studio of Antonin Mercie in Paris, where he also studied painting under Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret and Gustave Courtois.[2][5]

Lamia (1899–1900

Frampton returned to England and, briefly, worked in the studio of Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm.[2] He then took up a teaching post at the Slade School of Art in 1893 and was also, for a year, the joint head of the Central School of Arts and Crafts.[4][6]

In 1893 Frampton married the artist Christabel Cockerell and the couple set up home together at St John's Wood in London. Together they designed a decorative frieze for the interior of the house and Frampton began to design household fittings, jewellery in enamel and precious metals and also medals, most notably for Glasgow University and Winchester College.[4] By this time, Frampton was, according to the critic M.H. Spielmann "in open rebellion against white sculpture". In 1893 he showed Mysteriarch, a polychromatic plaster bust with Symbolism motifs at the Royal Academy and, two years later he showed another polychromatic work, Mother and Child at the same venue.[4] Mother and Child has bronze figures, of Frampton's wife and son, set against a copper plaque, and a white enamel disc behind the mother's head.[4][7] In his statue of Dame Alice Owen (1895) Frampton combined bronze and marble, and, later, with the bust Lamia (1899-1900) he contrasted an ivory head and neck with bronze clothing inlaid with opels.[2][8][9]

In 1896 Frampton exhibited, with the architect Charles Harrison Townsend, a large fireplace in American walnut at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.[4] The fireplace was decorated with an innovative tree and foliage design by Frampton that was subsequently much imitated by Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts designers and became known as the 'Frampton tree'.[4] Frampton used a similar design in his 1897 memorial to Charles Mitchell for St George's Church in Jesmond in Newcastle upon Tyne.[4]

St Mungo as the Patron of Art and Music, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Frampton's body of work in the 1880s brought him considerable recognition. The University of St Andrews awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1894.[2] In 1897 examples of Frampton's work featured at the Venice Biennale and at the Vienna Secession the following year.[2] He exhibited at the La Libre Esthétique in Brussels and showed four pieces at the Paris International Exhibition in 1900 for which he was awarded the Grand Prix.[4]

Recognition also brought Frampton two significant public commissions at this time. The architect John William Simpson appointed Frampton as master sculptor for the decoration of the facade of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.[4] As well as overseeing the work of several other sculptors, Frampton created a bronze sculpture group and three sets of stone spandrels for the north porch of the new building.[10] The sculpture group, of St Mungo attended by the muses of Art and Music, in the central arch of the porch contains Symbolism style motiffs featuring trees, bells and fishes similar to those Frampron had used in some of his earlier smaller pieces.[4] Frampton's other commission was for a frieze on the facade of the Lloyd's Register building in Fenchurch Street in London. There, Frampton created, at first floor level, a frieze in Portland stone of female figures representing Trade, Commerce and Shipping with four bronze statuettes at key points.[4][11] Both commissions, but especially the Fenchurch Street frieze, were widely praised at the time.[4]

In April 1897 a public meeting in Kolkata agreed to raise funds to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria and, eventually, commissioned Frampton to create a statue of the monarch.[12] Photographs of Frampton's model for the statue were published in the July 1898 edition of The Studio. The accompanying text described a figure over twice life-size, seated under a canopy, wearing the robe of the Order of the Star of India, decorated in gold, ivory and lapis lazuli. The completed statue, which was considerably less ornate and without a canopy, was shipped to India early in 1901 and erected on a temporary site in March 1902.[4] The statue was subsequently moved to a location in front of the Victoria Memorial, where it was sited on a large architectural podium.[4] The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 led to Frampton receiving several commissions for memorials to the Queen. Frampton based several of these on his design of a seated figure he used for the Kolkata statue but with some variations. He used the same cast for the Leeds and St Helens's statues but changed the style of the decorative details and pedestals between them.[13][14] A further version was created for the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg in 1904.[15] A different design of a much younger, standing Victoria was created for the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1906 and was unveiled by her son King Edward VII in the same year.[16]

Sir George James Frampton in 1915

Among Frampton's other notable public sculptures are the figures of Peter Pan playing a set of pipes, the lions at the British Museum and the Edith Cavell Memorial that stands outside the National Portrait Gallery, London.[5] The original Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, London, was commissioned by J.M. Barrie in 1912. Barrie was said to be disappointed at Frampton's depiction of Peter Pan, in particular at his choice of model for the figure of the boy.[17] However such was the popularity of the statue, six more casts were made which are now situated in:

• Perth, Western Australia, Australia
• Parc d'Egmont, Brussels, Belgium
• Bowring Park, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
• Toronto, Canada
• Sefton Park, Liverpool, England
• Camden, New Jersey, United States.

By March 1905 Aston Webb, the architect of the Cromwell Road extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum had commissioned over twenty sculptors to provide statues, carvings and decorations for the facade of the building.[4] Webb allocated what he considered the two most important areas to Frampton and Alfred Drury.[4] The area over the main entrance arch was allocated to Frampton who created spandrel figures of Truth and Beauty for the space while the remainder of the main entrance was assigned to Drury.[18]

A number of Frampton's works can be seen at the restored St James' Church, Warter in East Yorkshire. Frampton created Dr Barnardo's Memorial, in Barkingside, London, in 1908, a work he undertook without claiming a fee.[19]

During World War I Frampton used his position in various art socities and institutions to expel any German members he considered potential "enemy aliens". When the Art Workers Guild refused to expel Karl Krall, a British citizen born in Germany, Frampton resigned from the Guild.[17] In 1915 Frampton was commissioned to create a public memorial to Edith Cavell. Having waived his fee for the work, Frampton's modernist style monument in marble and granite was unveiled to huge crowds near Trafalgar Square in central London during 1920.[20] Several contemporary sculptors criticised the design and the engineering of the monument.[20]

Frampton subsequently worked with Sir Edwin Lutyens on two of the architect's war memorials in the aftermath of the First World War, the Hove War Memorial in East Sussex and the Fordham War Memorial in Cambridgeshire, unveiled in February and August 1921 respectively. Both feature a bronze statue of Saint George, sculpted by Frampton atop a column designed by Lutyens.[21]

• Marble statue of Queen Mary, Guildhall Art Gallery, London
• Sandstone reliefs for 177 Ingram St, Glasgow, 1896–1900
• Stone spandrel reliefs for Electra House, Moorgate c.1902
• Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, stone spandrals on the north porch entrance, main face British Colonies saluting the Arms of Glasgow, side returns Love teaching Harmony to the Arts and The Industries of Glasgow at the Court of Mercury