TWENTY YEARS’ EXILE

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 9

TWENTY YEARS’ EXILE

ENGLISH SCULPTOR RETURNS. •LONDON, August 2. After twenty years of exile in a back street in Bruges, P.rofessor Alfred Gilbert, the famous sculptor and the creator of ‘ Eros,’ which_ for years adorned the centre of Piccadilly Circus, has returned to England. He is now 74 years old, and proposes to complete the Duke of Clarence’s tomb in the Albert Alemorial Chapel, Windsor, the commission for which was entrusted to him by Xing Edward VII.; but the work was left unfinished thirtyyears ago. The ‘ Sketch ’ understands that it ha? always been the hope of the Royal Family that Professor Gilbert should complete the memorial, but there seemed a very slender chance of that. Professor Gilbert resigned from the Royal Academy in 1909 as the outcome of his sincerity in art. Ho had been engaged to make the memorial shortly after the Boer War. He spent the Works Commissioners’ money, but, dissatisfied with the work, smashed it. During the subsequent argument ho resigned and . retired, to Belgium. He remained at. .Bruges, steadily working during the German occupation, his reputation ranking with that of Rodin.