George Frampton

Sir George James Frampton, (18 June 1860 – 21 May 1928) was a British sculptor. He was a leading member of the New Sculpture movement in his early career when he created sculptures with elements of Art Nouveau and Symbolism, often combining various materials such as marble and bronze in a single piece. While his later works were more traditional in style, Frampton had a prolific career in which he created many notable public monuments, including several statues of Queen Victoria and later, after World War I, a number of war memorials. George Frampton began his own working life as a stone carver in 1878, working on the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. He went on to the Royal Academy Schools where, between 1881 and 1887, he won a gold medal and travelling scholarship. From 1887 to 1890, he studied and worked at the studio of Antonin Mercie in Paris, where he also studied painting under Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret and Gustave Courtois.

Early works

Frampton returned to England and, briefly, worked in the studio of Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm.

In 1893, Frampton married the artist Christabel Cockerell and the couple set up home together at St John's Wood in London. Together they designed a decorative frieze for the interior of the house and Frampton began to design household fittings, jewellery in enamel and precious metals and also medals, most notably for Glasgow University and Winchester College.

In his statue of Dame Alice Owen (1897) Frampton combined bronze, alabaster, gilding and marble, and, later, with the bust Lamia (1899-1900) he contrasted an ivory head and neck with bronze clothing inlaid with opals. The statue of Dame Alice Owen was originally shown at the Royal Academy as a free-standing statue but when it was installed in the entry hall of Owen's School Frampton made it the centre of a larger installation that he designed. In panels and niches around the statue, which he placed on a pink marble pedestal, Frampton included 16th-century carvings of Owen's ancestors and fragments of her 17th-century tomb. He regularly exhibited at the La Libre Esthétique in Brussels, a city he considered an important market for his work. The sculpture group, of St Mungo attended by the muses of Art and Music, in the central arch of the porch contains Symbolism style motifs featuring trees, bells and fishes similar to those Frampron had used in some of his earlier smaller pieces. Both commissions, but especially the Fenchurch Street frieze, were widely praised at the time. Photographs of Frampton's model for the statue were published in the July 1898 edition of The Studio. The accompanying text described a figure over twice life-size, seated under a canopy, wearing the robe of the Order of the Star of India, decorated in gold, ivory and lapis lazuli. A polychrome plaster version was displayed at the Glasgow Exhibition of 1901 and was greatly praised for its depiction of the elderly queen. The statue was subsequently moved to a location in front of the Victoria Memorial, where it was sited on a large architectural podium. A further version was created for the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg in 1904. A different design of a much younger, standing Victoria was created for the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1906 and was unveiled by her son King Edward VII in the same year.

Among Frampton's other notable public sculptures are the figures of Peter Pan playing a set of pipes, the lions at the British Museum and the Edith Cavell Memorial that stands outside the National Portrait Gallery, London. However such was the popularity of the statue, six more casts were made which are now situated in: Perth, Western Australia, Australia Parc d'Egmont, Brussels, Belgium Bowring Park, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada Toronto, Canada Sefton Park, Liverpool, England Camden, New Jersey, United States.

By March 1905, Aston Webb, the architect of the Cromwell Road extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum had commissioned over twenty sculptors to provide statues, carvings and decorations for the facade of the building. Webb allocated what he considered the two most important areas to Frampton and Alfred Drury.

A number of Frampton's works can be seen at the restored St James' Church, Warter in East Yorkshire. Frampton created Dr Barnardo's Memorial, in Barkingside, London, in 1908, a work he undertook without claiming a fee.

During World War I Frampton used his position in various art societies and institutions to expel any German members he considered potential "enemy aliens". When the Art Workers Guild refused to expel Karl Krall, a British citizen born in Germany, Frampton resigned from the Guild. The severe, modern appearance of the memorial is distinct from Frampton's earlier, more heroic style of Boer War memorials and was criticised as such. Several contemporary sculptors also criticised the design and the engineering of the monument.

Personal life Frampton's first house and studio was at 32 Queen's Grove (where a blue plaque to his name has been erected), but he later built a larger house nearby in Carlton Hill, both in St John's Wood, London. He was married to the artist Christabel Cockerell and had one son, the painter and etcher Meredith Frampton. He sculpted the Art Workers' Guild's Master's Jewel in silver representing 'Art is Unity'. Frampton became a royal academician in 1902 and was knighted in 1908.

Death Frampton died on 21 May 1928 aged 67 and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 25 May. His ashes lie in a niche on the ground floor of the east wing of the Ernest George Columbarium. A memorial sculpted by Ernest Gillick in 1930 depicting a bronze child holding a miniature copy of Frampton's statue of Peter Pan is located in the Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral.

1900–1904

1905–1909

1910–1919

1920 and later

Other works, United Kingdom Marble statue of Queen Mary, Guildhall Art Gallery, London Sandstone reliefs for 177 Ingram St, Glasgow, 1896–1900

Stone spandrel reliefs for Electra House, Moorgate c.1902 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, stone spandrels on the north porch entrance, main face British Colonies saluting the Arms of Glasgow, side returns Love teaching Harmony to the Arts and The Industries of Glasgow at the Court of Mercury Figure of Bishop George Wilkinson in St Ninian's Cathedral, Perth. Bronze bust of Francis Galton at University College London A bust of Richard Garnett which was shown at the Royal Academy in 1899. A 1908 bust of Robert Herbert in the Foreign Office, London. Bust of Frederick Inderwick in the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Frampton cooperated with Alfred East and Thomas Cooper Gotch to create a memorial tablet to the artist John Trivett Nettleship for a church in Kettering. An original bust, and several copies, of John Passmore Edwards. Head & shoulders in high relief of Dr Barnardo at Barnardo's Home in Barkingside, 1908. Monument to Charles William Mitchell, Church of St George, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1903-1905 Marble recumbent effigy of Lady Isobel Wilson, died 1905, in St James' Church, Warter, Yorkshire Monument, with portrait bust, to Sir George Williams, 1908, the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, London Monument, with portrait medallion and statue of St George, to Edward VII, King Edward's Hospital, Northampton, c. 1910 Three marble relief plaques depicting Agriculture, Commerce and Literature, Art and Science which were part of a large fireplace for the former Imperial Institute building in London and are now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Other works, India Marble statue of Queen Mary, 1910, interior of the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata Marble statue of Queen Mary, c. 1918, installed 1930 in the Marble Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi;- now the official residence of the President of India Marble bust, 1914, of Queen Mary for the entrance for Queen Mary's College for Women, Mylapore, Chennai Bronze, equestrian statue of Sir John Woodburn, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, erected 1907 in Kolkata, later relocated to Barrackpore Bronze statue on a pedestal of Andrew Henderson Leith Fraser, 1911, gardens of Victoria Memorial, Kolkata Bronze statue of Queen Victoria, c. 1899, now in the Uttar Pradesh State Museum, Lucknow Marble statue of Antony MacDonnell, 1st Baron MacDonnell, 1905, erected 1907 at Lucknow, India and now in the Uttar Pradesh State Museum, Lucknow