Ophelia Gordon Bell

Joan Ophelia Gordon Bell (1915–1975) was an English sculptor, known for her several commissions for the United Kingdom's Atomic Energy Authority.

She was born in London on 1 July 1915, the daughter of the painter Winifred Gordon Bell, (née Billinge; full name Winifred Joan Ophelia Gordon Bell ) and Frederick Lawrence Bell, In 1938, her address was listed as 13 Greville Place, London NW6.

She studied at Regent Street Polytechnic in the 1930s one of them being the painter Julian Cooper. Both Bell and her husband were followers of the teachings of the Christian Moral Re-Armament movement.

Bell died in Grasmere in 1975 and is buried in the village cemetery. The plaster cast remains in Grasmere.

William and Dorothy in 1800, depicts William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy.

St Oswald's Church, Grasmere has her stone sculpture of the Madonna and child.

The Breakthrough Cross (1966), on the roof of the Lady Chapel at the Church of Christ the Healer at Burrswood Hospital in Groombridge, is made from aluminium and scrap metal.

Other works are displayed at the Heaton Cooper Studio in Grasmere, Formerly at Ambleside, William moved the gallery to Grasmere in 1938. It is now operated by John Cooper, another of Ophelia and William's sons.

Legacy The Lakes Artists Society, of which Bell was a member from 1940 until her death, grants an annual 'Ophelia Gordon Bell Award' for sculpture "to encourage and reward excellence and innovation".