Edith Downing

Edith Elizabeth Downing (January 1857 – 3 October 1931) was a British artist, sculptor and suffragette.

Life Edith Elizabeth Downing was born in Cardiff, Wales in January 1857. She was one of four children of the coal merchant and shipping agent Edward Downing, having two sisters and a brother, Edward. Her sister Mary was also to become an artist, whilst her other sister, Caroline Lowder Downing, was to join the Women's Social and Political Union with Edith. After attending Cheltenham College, Edith spent most of her working life based in Chelsea. Downing worked with bronze and marble to create complex statues. Downing also used her artistic talents to support her activities as a suffragette, both by working with her fellow artist Marion Wallace-Dunlop to organise a series of dramatic processions and by selling her work to raise funds for the movement. These included statuettes entitled 'A Sketch' and 'Peter Pan' in 1908 and statuettes of Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney in 1909. This group was known to have more radical ideas about women’s rights than other suffrage organizations at the time.

In November 1911, Downing participated in several protests including one in Parliament Square and another at Somerset House. As a way to manage these protests, Winson Green prison began force-feeding the women on strike. Other prisons experiencing this issue also practiced force feeding. This released the starving prisoners who were on hunger strike from prison. Downing was released at the end of June.

Artworks During her time as an artist, Edith Downing created several notable works. Her statues often favored realism and heavily emphasized human expression, particularly in the faces she sculpted.

Many of her artworks were created with the intent of being sold so the profits donated to the suffrage movement. Edith sold her bronze sculpture titled Boy with Cherry for this exact purpose. Her arm is outstretched as if she is begging for more money. It shows her concentration while reading sheet music from Psalms.

Lyric Music Lyric Music, created in 1909, shows a woman with the upper half of her body uncovered, sitting while playing a musical instrument.

Boy with Cherry, Avarice, Music, Sulks, Lyric Music, and other artworks by Edith Downing were all gifted to the National Museum of Wales in 1930, one year before her death.