Grizel Niven

Grizel Rosemary Graham Niven (28 November 1906 – 28 January 2007) was a British sculptor. She created the figurine presented to the winner of the annual Women's Prize for Fiction, formerly the Orange Prize for Fiction, since its inception in 1996. Known as "The Bessie", the trophy is cast each year with a different mixture of bronze, making each award unique.

Niven created abstract and figurative works in a variety of materials such as fibreglass, resin, paint, metal, Perspex, and hardboard. For several years, she was the resident sculptor at the Edith Grove Gallery in Chelsea, London, which held a solo retrospective of her work.

Early life and education Grizel Niven was born in Belgravia, London, in 1906, the third of four children of William Edward Graham Niven (1878–1915) and Henriette Degacher (1878–1932). Her elder siblings were Margaret Joyce Niven (1900–1981), Henry Degacher Niven (1902–1953), and her younger brother was the actor, writer and soldier David Niven (1910–1983). Grizel, pronounced "Grizzle", was described as "an odd Scots name" in her brother's authorised biography.

Niven's mother, Henriette, was born in Brecon, Wales. Her father was Captain (brevet Major) William Degacher (1841–1879) of the 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, who was killed at the Battle of Isandlwana during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. Although born William Hitchcock, in 1874, he and his older brother Lieutenant Colonel Henry Degacher (1835–1902), both followed their father, Walter Henry Hitchcock, in taking their mother's maiden name of Degacher. Henriette's mother was Julia Caroline Smith, the daughter of Lieutenant General James Webber Smith CB.

Niven's father, a lieutenant in the Berkshire Yeomanry of Scottish descent, was killed in action in Turkey during the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War on 21 August 1915. David is said to have revealed that he knew Comyn-Platt was his real father a year before his own death in 1983.

The family moved to Rose Cottage in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight after selling their London home, where Grizel and David played cricket and sailed in a dinghy during school holidays. Grizel Niven attended boarding school in Norfolk. Following a brief career in theatre, she studied sculpture with Henry Moore at Chelsea Polytechnic.

Career

Acting After completing her studies at RADA, Niven joined a touring theatre group, acting alongside Jean Anderson, Robert Morley, and Sir John Clements. She once shared a stage with Dame Edith Evans in the West End, playing her maid.

In 1980, Niven's studio in Fulham was broken into by a burglar who stole valuables, including her carving tools for wood and stone, and smashed everything in sight. She also had a solo exhibition at The Place.

"The Bessie" Niven heard Kate Mosse talking on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour about setting up a Women's Prize for Fiction, and had her representative call Mosse to offer a cast of a sculpture of hers as a trophy. The bronze Bessie figurine itself is high. Each year, the sculpture is recast with a different mixture of bronze, making each trophy unique. Brown quoted 2000 prize winner Linda Grant as saying, "When I got the Bessie I thought 'Oh God, what an ugly thing!' But now the more I look at her, the more I enjoy looking at her. She's on my mantelpiece as a concrete symbol of success". Although David had bought her a house on Fulham Road, she disliked it, and lived alone for many years in a council flat on Jubilee Place in Chelsea.