GREAT SCULPTOR

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 90, 13 October 1931, Page 7

GREAT SCULPTOR

SIR BEKTEAM M'KENNAL

MANY BIG WORKS

Over sixty years agu a little boy toddled into his father's studio in Melbourne, picked up a chisel, and commenced working away at a piece oi' discarded marble, as though it were second nature to him. The little chap imitated the movements of his father, ■who, pausing in his work, often wondered whether his son would ever reveal the creative something in his art that ho himself had missed. Then, with the day's work ended, the father would take his boy on his knee, and with paper and pencil draw nursery rhyme personalities until his little son's eyes grew heavy with, sleep. Tucked away in his blankets, his youthful imagination wandered among! the plastic forms in his father's studio, and he solemnly determined he would I one day follow his father. Jn this) humble environment the seed was sown in the mind of Sir Bertram Maekcnnal, who has since Avon his place among the distinguished sculptors of Britain, and whose death has just been announced. Determination that characterised him when small has remained with him throughout his career. | Sir Bertram was a splendid specimen of physical fitness, standing over six feet in'height, with a strong, forceful, yet breezy" personality, and a manly i'aco which expressed emotion for the art form which he might be discussing. AN EXCEPTION. Many a time throughout his early career he could have chosen a less tortuous path thnn the one that led to the shrine of Diana and Circe, but he had determined he would give expression to his innate art, to his vision find interpretation of life. He would make his chisel sing another Odysseus, not to a race of dead heroes merely, but to a living reality, to the flesh and blood around him, to the man who faced shells at Gallipoli, to the dawn of a new era, to the elements that contribute their beauty to the sky of Australia. There were the visions he was for evor conjuring up, and his expression of many of them made his name famed throughout the world. One has learnt to associate hard struggles, days of hunger, nights of cold, with men who have ultimately succeeded in art, but curiously enough, the life of Bertram Mackennal proves the exception to the rule. He had hard times enough in Ms early manhood, but the merit of his art never went begging; till he had placed his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder that led to fortune, he was always able to obtain sufficient patronage to keep him at work in Ms studio in comfort. Bertram Mackennal was born in Melbourne in 1863. When he was nineteen, after completing a successful course in art at the National Gallery, Melbourne, his father expressed the desire for him to continue his studies abroad. This was also suggested by Marshall Wood, who visited Melbournn in 1880, and saw his work. With this object in view he loft Melbourne for London, and studied art at tho British Museum, whore he soon passed the examination qualifying for admission to tho Academy School. Shortly afterwards ho went to Paris, and worked on a model for two years. Here romance entered his life, and, falling iv love with a Miss Spooner, who was a pensionnaire in a Parisian school, he married, and took his brido to Italy, where he remained for two and a half years, studying art. Returning to London for a further period of two years, he exhibited a model in the Royal Academy, for the first time in his career. IN AUSTRALIA. Encouraged by his success, he again went to Paris, where he won a competition for two reliefs on the facade of Parliament House, Melbourne. He returned to Australia in 1889, to carve them, spending about two and a half years on the work. Although only 26 years of age, he was now well on the road to success, and feeling that Paris offered greater scope for his development, he returned there to accomplish his really first big work, in 1893, at tho Salon, that of a statue of Circe, which is- now in the Melbourne Art Gallery. Finally he settled in London, where_ he lived for most of the rest of his life. The year of his great triumph came in 1909, when the Chantry Bequest (Jommittoo purchased his marble statues "Diana Wounded" and his marble group "The Earth and Its Elements, *| the following year. As a recognition of his art, he was elected an Associate of the Koyal Academy, which consolidated his position among the ranks of artists. This was tho first occasion on which the Koyal Academy had ever so honoured an artist from the Dominions. Commission now followed commission. Every moment of his day wa3 so taken up that he scarcely had any leisure, exhibiting iv the Koyal. Academy every year. The British Government engaged his services, and gradually his work, began to mako its_ appearance on leading public buildings, and he was-entrusted with the, design for the new coinage of King. George "V. A KING'S MEMORIAL. The crowning period of his career arrived in '3911, when ho was commissioned to do the tomb of King Edward V.U., for St. Gieorge's Chapel, Windsor. Heated discussion among tho English artists arose when the announcement was made. In a subsc-. fjuent interview between King George and Sir Bertram the King said laconically: "Oh, when you're placed on a pedestal you must expect to be shied at." In 1912 Sir Bertram was elected a Member of the Victorian Order. He was knighted on 20th July, 1921, and admitted as a full B.A| in 1922. He was also an honorary member of the Royal Scotch Academy. Sir Bertram's methods were typical of tho artist. He lived for Ms art, and worked daily on a. big job till he grew tired. He was a methodical workman. His studio was more like an art gallery than a workshop, with everything iv its proper place. Among his best known works wove statues of Queen Victoria, the War Memorial at Islington, the Clarke Memorial, pediment of the now Government Building at Westminster, the coinage of King George V., the National Memorial to Gainsborough, the Coronation Medal, the Soldiers' Medals of the Boer War and the Great War, the Olympic Medals for England and other countries, large tombs of Lord and Lady Curzon, Duke of Norfolk, the Calcutta Indian Memorial of King Edward VII., also memorials for Adelaide and Melbourne, two statues of King George, the only statues commissioned by the King; the War Memorials in the House of Commons and the_ Lords, and the Springthorpe Memorial in Kew Cemetery, Melbourne, "The Dawn of a Kew Age." His bronze group, "Phoebus Driving tho Horses of the Sun," placed above the main entrance of Australia House, is a colossal piece of work. It stands 19 feet high, 60 feet broad. The figure of Phoebus is 18 feet in height. "Oceania," at the L'nion Club, Sydney; "Tho Dancer," Sydney Gallery, and his famous Shake-gpcari'-in Statue opposite the Mittfceli Library, Sydney. Probably his most renowned works of art are "Circe," in the Melbourne Gallery; "The Earth and the Elements," in the Tate Gallery; and the relief work in tho pediment, over the 1,0f3l Government Board Building at Whitehall.