Goscombe John

John was born in the Canton area of Cardiff, to Thomas John, a wood carver from Llantrithyd and Elizabeth, nee Smith, from Randwick in Gloucestershire.[1][2] As a youth John assisted his father in the restoration of Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch during 1874 which was being overseen by William Burges.[2][3] He initially studied in his home town, attending the Cardiff School of Art throughout the 1870s and also took anatomy classes.[4] John went to London in 1881 and worked as a pupil-assistant in the studio of Thomas Nicholls, Burges's architectural carver.[3] John then studied at the South London School of Technical Art under Jules Dalou and William Silver Frith and afterward at the Royal Academy schools, where he won the gold medal and a travelling scholarship in 1887.[5][3] Throughout 1890 and 1891 he travelled in Europe and Africa and, in 1891, studied in Paris with Auguste Rodin.[2][5] Also in 1891, he married the Swiss-born Marthe Weiss.[2] Their daughter Muriel married Frederick Luke Val Fildes, the son of the artist Sir Luke Fildes.[6]

As a young man he adopted the first name Goscombe, taken from the name of a village in Gloucestershire near his mother's home.[7]

Goscombe John returned to Paris in 1892 to show a statuette, Morpheus at the Paris Salon.[8] John embraced the vigous naturalistic style of the New Sculpture movement and cemented his reputation with works such as John the Baptist for Lord Bute and with a number of life-sized figures including The Elf and A Boy at Play.[8] A Boy at Play was subsequently purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate.[9]

By the early 1890s John had established himself as a sculptor of some note and began to receive significant public commissions.[8] Although based in London, John won a number of large commissions in his native Wales. These included his 1916 marble St David Blessing the People and ten other figures for Cardiff City Hall.[8] He designed the Hirlas Horn for the 1898 National Eisteddfod of Wales and a set of ceremonial tools to mark the building of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.[2] His statue of the shipping magnate and philanthropist John Cory was erected in front of Cardiff City Hall. He received a further number of national and international commissions, including for several war memorials. In 1921 he designed the memorial at Port Sunlight to the employees of Lever Brothers Ltd who had died in the First World War; he also sculpted portraits of Lord and Lady Lever. John received gold medals from the Paris Salon in 1892 and 1901, was made a Royal Academician in 1909, was knighted in 1911, and became a corresponding member of the Institut de France.[5][9] He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1886 and continued to do so annually until 1948.[2] In 1942 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Society of Sculptors.[9]

John settled in Greville Road, Kilburn, London (in a house that had previously belonged to Seymour Lucas), and is buried in Hampstead Cemetery.[10] The memorial statue of his wife, which he designed when she died in 1923, was stolen from the cemetery in 2001 but recovered after a few months; it was put into secure storage, but was again stolen in early 2007.

Saint John the Baptist

Goscombe John's output was prolific and also includes the statue of King Edward VII at Cape Town and the equestrian statue of the Earl of Minto at Calcutta. Goscombe John also executed the monument to the Marquis of Salisbury, in Westminster Abbey[5] and works in Hatfield Church.

John's output also included:

• Statue of Saint John the Baptist.[81]
• Sculptures on Electra House in Moorgate, City of London, these dating from 1900 to 1903 and representing Egypt, Japan, India and China.[82][3]
• The work Grief dating to 1890.[83]
• Figures of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra on the facade of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1906.[84][3]
• Carved figures on a reredos in St John the Baptist Church, St John Street, Cardiff.[85]
• Designed the regalia for the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon in 1911.[5][2]
• Designed the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935.[5]
• Merlin and Arthur (c. 1896) in the collection of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Accession number: NMW A 127. This bronze was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1902.[86] The museum also holds many other works by Goscombe John.[87][5]
• Memorial Relief to the late Canon Guy D.D, (1897) in Llandaff Cathedral.[88]
• Memorial, in the form of a bronze effigy, to Bishop Edward Bevan, 1861–1934, in Brecon Cathedral.[89]

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. Missing or empty |title= (help)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Goscombe John.

• 172 paintings by or after Goscombe John at the Art UK site
• John, Sir William Goscombe (1860–1952) Article on Goscombe John's work with images from The National Archives.
• Works by John in the National Museum of Wales collection