SCULPTOR KNIGHTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 137, 11 June 1932, Page 9

SCULPTOR KNIGHTED.

DESIGNED EROS STATUE. (British Official Wirelese.) RUGBY, June 10. The King knighted Mr. Alfred Gilbert, the 78-years-old sculptor and designer of the famous Eros, statue, at Buckingliam Palace yesterday. Only last week the new knight accepted an invitation to rejoin the Royal Academy, from which he resigned 23 years ago asthe result of a' controversy over this statue. The sculptor lived in Belgium for 17 years and returned to London at the invitation of the King to complete a memorial to the late Duke of Clarence at Windsor. Then he began work on the Queen Alexandra memorial, which was unveiled by the King at Marlborough House on Wednesday. The man who produced perhaps the most controvereial piece of sculpture in Britain, now Sir Alfred Gilbert,' was born in London, and educated in Italy, where he gained his very noticeable Florentine style. Hie first important work was a charming "Mother aud Child." Then came "The Kise of Victor}'," on the merits of which. Lord Leighton commissioned "Icarus," which was shown at the Royal Academy. In 1885 he made the Piccadily Shaftesbury fountain with its flying Eroe. This statue aroused so much hostile criticism that its author resigned his professorship of sculpture, and his membership of the Royal Academy, and left England altogether. He did not return for 20 yeara—until 1926. He suggested during the 1925 controversy as .to the removal of the statue that it should be melted down and its valuable copper used to build a shelter for the homeless. However, his work is now appreciated, for in 1926 the Royal Society of British Sculptors unanimously awarded him its gold medal. The statue of Eros wae cleaned and reereoted at considerable cost this year.