The New (British) Sculpture and the struggle for realism between the wars

Abstract

This essay explores the desire displayed by two broad groups of British sculptors in the years immediately after the end of First World War to create a ‘new form’ of public sculpture for Britain. By the early 1930s one leading writer on contemporary sculpture, Kineton Parkes, had identified two generations seeking to create ‘new’ British sculpture. Both had been significantly shaped by their First World War service. However, the slightly older generation - which included Charles Sargeant Jagger MC (1885-1934), William Reid Dick and Gilbert Ledward - looked to the tradition of French realism introduced to the British art world in the late nineteenth century by Aime-Jules Dalou (1838-1902) and Edouard Lanteri (1848-1917), his protege and successor as Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. The younger generation, among whom Parkes included, among others, Eric Kennington (1888-1960), Henry Moore, Maurice Lambert and Frank Dobson, were more impressed by the stylistic experimentation of such Paris-...