john bell·1811 - 1895

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use the down arrow to view option ========================= link to further material not in books ========================= ---------- section b ---------- bacon, john [BWM] baily, edward hodges [BWM] baker, sir herbert [Rem] behnes, william [BWM] bell, john [BWM] belsky, franta [BWM] binyon, laurence [Rem] blomfield, sir reginald [Rem] blunden, edmund [Rem] boehm, sir edgar [BWM] brock, sir thomas [BWM] butler, james [BWM] burdett-coutts, william [Rem] burnet, sir john james [Rem] ========================= ---------- section c ---------- chantrey, sir francis [BWM] churchill, sir winston [Rem] cockerell, professor charles [BWM] comper, sir ninian [BWM] ========================= ---------- section d ---------- derwent wood, professor francis [Rem] dick, sir william reid [BWM] drury, alfred [BWM] ========================= ---------- section e ---------- epstein, sir jacob [BWM] ========================= ---------- section f ---------- flaxman, professor john [BWM] frampton, sir george [BWM] ========================= ---------- section g ---------- gill, eric [BWM] gleichen, count victor [BWM] goscombe john, sir william [BWM] gotto, captain basil [BWM] ========================= ---------- section h ---------- haig, field marshall earl douglas [Rem] hepworth, philip [Rem] holden, charles [Rem] hutton, john [Rem] ========================= ---------- section j ---------- jackson, philip [BWM] jagger, charles sargeant [Rem] jones, captain adrian [BWM] ========================= ---------- section k ---------- kennington, eric [BWM] kenyon, colonel sir frederic [Rem] kipling, joseph rudyard [Rem] ========================= ---------- section l ---------- lafontaine, colonel cart de [Rem] lantéri, professor édouard [BWM] ledward, professor gilbert [BWM] lewis, sir robert [Rem] lloyd george, earl dwyfor - om [Rem] lorimer, sir robert [Rem] lutyens, sir edwin - om [Rem] ========================= ---------- section m ---------- mackenall, sir bertram [BWM] mallock, vivien [BWM] marochetti, baron carlo [BWM] marsh, sir edward howard [Rem] maufe, sir edward [Rem] mcmillan, william [BWM] melchett, lord [Rem] millington, major tasman [Rem] mills, john w [BWM] mond, sir alfred [Rem] ========================= ---------- section n ---------- nash, john [BWM] nightingale, florence - om [Rem] ========================= ---------- section 0 ---------- orpen, sir william [Rem] owen, wilfred [Rem] ========================= ---------- section p ---------- pegram, henry alfred [BWM] poole, henry [Rem] ========================= ---------- section r ---------- reid dick, sir william [BWM] roberts-jones, ivor [BWM] rosenburg, isaac [Rem] ========================= ---------- section s ---------- sassoon, siegfried [Rem] shepheard, sir peter [Rem] singer sargent, john [Rem] soissons, louis de [Rem] spencer, sir stanley [BWM] ========================= ---------- section t ---------- thornycroft, sir (william) hamo [BWM] toft, albert [BWM] turner, alfred [BWM] tweed, john [BWM] ========================= ---------- section w ---------- wade, george [BWM] ware, major general sir fabian [Rem] webb, sir aston [BWM] westmacott, sir richard [BWM] wheeler, sir charles [BWM] winter, faith [BWM] wood, francis derwent [BWM] worthington, sir hubert [Rem]

According to the DNB John Bell was born at Hopton, Suffolk in 1811. (Men of Our Times in 1862 gives his year of birth as 1812). He was educated at Catfield village school and on the recommendation of H. Sass entered the RA Schools in 1829. He exhibited his first work, a religious group at the RA in 1832 and would exhibit there for 47 years.

“We have tried in every possible way to like this work and consider it the right thing, but we have failed signally”

He produced A Girl at a Brook and John the Baptist (1833), The Quarterstaff Player (1833), Ariel (1834) Psyche feeding a Swan, Youth, Spring and Infancy. Psyche and the Dove (1837) Amoret Captive (1838) The Wounded Clorinda (1841) and The Eagle Shooter. In 1837 he produced the busts Amoret and Psyche which were exhibited at the British Institution and The Babes in the Wood (1839). In 1839 he exhibited Dorothea at the RA and this work would subsequently be reproduced by Minton in parian porcelain. Bell was the first British sculptor to produce a large number of reduced sized works for sale and Dorothea was the most popular piece he ever produced.

He sculpted again The Eagle Shooter (1841) (Bethnal Green Museum). In 1848 he executed the figures on the Corn Exchange at Newark. He produced the bronze and ormolu figures Queen Victoria and The Prince Consort for the Great Exhibition (1851). In 1853 he produced the colossi Australia, California, Birmingham and Sheffield for the terrace of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. In 1854 he produced Lord Falkland and Sir Robert Walpole for St Stephen's Hall, Westminster. He sculpted Armed Science (1855) for the Royal Artillery Officers Mess at Woolwich. A modified terracotta version was fired by Doulton for the Soldiers Memorial (1878) in Norwich Cemetery. He produced The Wellington Monument (1856) at the Guildhall, London and Lalage (1856).

In 1859 he was awarded a medal by the Society of Arts for his treatise The Origination of the Principle of Entasis as Applied to the Obelisk. He sculpted the Guards Crimea Memorial (1860) in bronze at Waterloo Place, London which earned mixed reviews. One journal noted: ‘We have tried in every possible way to like this work and consider it the right thing, but we have failed signally.' He also produced The Royal Artillery Crimean War Memorial (1860) on the Parade Ground at Woolwich. He produced The Cross of Prayer (1864) A Cherub (1865) The Foot of the Cross (1866) Mother and Child (1867) the medallion portrait John Croome (1868) in St George's, Norwich and for the Albert Memorial he produced the remarkable 27 ton work in Campanella marble, The United States Directing the Progress of America (1869). A large terra cotta copy is in Washington D.C. The Times wrote: ‘Mr Bell's America is undoubtedly the finest conception and composition of the four groups, and the boldest and most vigorous in every way.... The sense of action and progress and power which radiates from the whole group makes us aware that we are in the presence of a really great work'.

He produced the James Montgomery Monument (1861) in Sheffield Cemetery, Cursetjee Manockjee (1875) at Mumbai. His busts included: Sir Robert Walpole (1858) Eton, Dr Clarke (1866) Anatomical Museum, Cambridge, Dr Hugh Falconer (1867) Madras, Monument to Lady Waveney (1871) Flixton Church, Suffolk, and Lord Byron (1877). One critic noted: ‘His early works of sculpture had shown vigour and imagination, but his later groups exhibited at the Academy were remarkable for nothing but bad taste and sickly sentimentality.'

In retirement Bell wrote poetry and presented his models to Kensington Town Hall. The town hall took a direct hit in the Blitz and they were destroyed. Kensington and Chelsea's Rate Records show that he occupied a studio at Little Camden House from 1851 until his death, (also demolished in the Blitz). ‘In private life Bell endeared himself to all who knew him. He had retired from the active exercise of his profession for many years before his death, which took place on 14 March 1895 at Douro Place, Kensington, where he had resided for more than forty years'.