ARTIST’S BITTER EXILE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 17 January 1935, Page 9

ARTIST’S BITTER EXILE

MAN WHO BUILT EROS

STORMY LIFE CLOSES. Sir Alfred Gilbert, the famous sculptor, admired by art connoisseurs throughout the world, yet probably more widely known to the general public as the creator of Eros, the statue in Piccadilly Circus, London, died m a London nursing home on November 4, at the age of 80, after four months’ illness.

Sir Alfred’s life was stormy and emotional. He was elected to the membership of the Royal Academy in 1592, and a year later the Shaftesbury Memorial (Eros) was unveiled. But the sculptor, who had spent on the ,rc; k £4OOO more than the amount agreed to by the office of works—£4ooo—alleged that liis original design had been interfered with and quarrelled with ii.e department.

i The incident mentioned coupled with friction between Sir Alfred and the authorities concerning the memorial to the Duke of Clarence—elder brother of King George, who died in 1892—which he was executing at AAHndsor, so distressed Sir Alfred that in 1900 he went into voluntary exile abroad. He resigned, a few years later, from the Royal Academy. He settled in Bruges, where he lived for the next 20 years in poverty, and neglected by his former friends and patrons, and there bo would have remained but for the King’s command. His Majesty was interested in the unfinished Duke of Clarence memorial, and in 1926, Sir Alfred returned to England and completed the work. From that moment the aged sculptor was offered more commissions than he could accept, and his welcome home did much to sweeten the later years of his life.

Sir Alfred was honoured in his 79th year by the Savage Club. The company cheered him and drank to him, and when he rose to thank them his tears fell. “These are sweet tears.’ ’Sir Alfred faltered. '“Y)our 'wonderful welcome overcomes me. . I am an old man.

. . . I have gone through every kind of vicissitude. No one knows but himself what the life of an artist is. You have to bleed. . Emotion choked him. Again and again he tried to say more, but only tears came. While Sir Alfred was in Bruges the dispute about Eros broke out again. Ho wrote to the office of works: “There is more than £3OOO worth of copper (in Eros). Take it down, melt it, turn it into pence, and give it to the unfortunate people who nightly demand a resting place on the Thames Embankment. . . and cease troubling an artist.”

After bis return to England to complete the Clarence Memorial Sir Alfred was also commissioned to create tfie Queen Alexandra Memorial at Marlborough House, which was unveiled in 1932. The same year lie was knighted by the King and re-elected Roval Academician.

Sir Alfred was as exquisite a modeller as he was a carver. Ho was also a skilled goldsmith. In this year's academy exhibition he showed a bronze head of Paderewski which has been acquired for the nation under the terms of the Cliantrey Bequest.