Thomas Brock RA - Biography

(1847-1922). Brock studied at the Government School of Design in Worcester and at the Royal Academy from 1867, winning a gold medal in 1869 for his group Hercules Strangling Antaeus. From 1866, he was a pupil of John Henry Foley. He made numerous portrait busts, funerary monuments and public statues, achieving a reputation as a monumental sculptor after his master, Foley, died in 1874. In 1877, he assisted Frederic Lord Leighton with the execution of his bronze Athlete Wrestling with a Python, a piece that is regarded as central to the development of the movement known as The New Sculpture, in which a greater emphasis was placed on naturalism. His commissions included Rt. Rev. Henry Philpott, DD, Bishop of Worcester, Worcester Cathedral (1896), the tomb of Frederick Lord Leighton, St Paul’s Cathedral (1900), an equestrian statue Black Prince, Leeds (1902), Gladstone Memorial (1903, Westminster Abbey) and Sir J.E. Millais (1904, London). The most prestigious of his works, the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace (in collaboration with Aston Webb, 1901--9), earned him his knighthood at its unveiling in 1911. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1868 onwards, becoming a Royal Academician in 1891. In 1905, he became the first president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. Sources: Beattie, S., The New Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1983, pp.134, 241; Cavanagh, T., Public Sculpture of Liverpool, Liverpool, 1997, p.323f.; Cavanagh, T. and Yarrington, A., Public Sculpture of Leicestershire and Rutland, Liverpool, 2000, p.357; Darby, E. and M., ‘The Nation’s Memorial to Victoria’, Country Life, 16 November 1978, pp.1647--8; Noszlopy, George T., Public Sculpture of Birmingham including Sutton Coldfield, Liverpool, 1998, p.185; Noszlopy, George T., Public Sculpture of Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull, Liverpool, 2003, p.248f.; Read, B., Victorian Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1982, pp.69, 75, 289, 329, 344--5, 364, 371--9; Spielmann, M., British Sculpture and Sculptors of Today, London, 1901, pp.26--33.

The works of Thomas Brock RA: