Details of Sculptor

Surname

Stephens

Alternative Surname

First Name

Edward Bowring ARA

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

1815

Flourished

Year of Death

1882

Biographical Details

He was born in Exeter on 10 December 1815, the son of James Stephens, a local mason. He began his artistic training under the draughtsman and landscape painter John Gendall, but then moved to London and in 1835 became a pupil of E H Baily RA. In 1837, while living at 78 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, he won a silver medal from the Society of Arts for a model (13) and entered the Royal Academy Schools. The following year he was awarded the Academy’s silver medal for an original model of Ajax defying the Gods (14). Stephens exhibited regularly at the RA from 1838 onwards, showing principally portrait busts and ideal works based on classical, biblical and literary subject matter. Between 1838 and 1858 he showed sporadically at British Institution exhibitions. In 1839 he travelled to Italy and spent time working in Rome before returning to Exeter nearly three years later, when he executed a life-size seated statue in marble of the Devonshire landowner and politician John, Baron Rolle (16).
In 1842 Stephens returned to London, where he resumed his studies at the RA Schools and in 1843 he was awarded the gold medal for a small relief model depicting the Battle of the centaurs and lapithae (106). He attracted public attention with three works sent to the Westminster Hall exhibitions of 1844 and 1845 (19, 20, 21), but it was the group of Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness (18) that was particularly admired by one commentator. He considered Stephens ‘one of the most rising sculptors of the day, one whom we confidently expect to see placed in the highest seat the profession supplies’ (AU, 1844, 216). Stephens contributed statues of Satan tempting Eve and Satan Vanquished to the Great Exhibition of 1851 and another entitled Preparing for the chase to the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857 (26, 27, 30). In that year his group of Mercy on the battlefield was issued as a small bronze by the Art Union of London (29).
Stephens maintained close links with his native county throughout his career. In 1861 he carved a statue of the politician and philanthropist, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, for Northernhay Gardens, Exeter (34) and several commissions for public statues of Devon worthies followed (36, 39, 46, 53). In 1865 he carved two statues for the west front of Exeter Cathedral and in 1870 donated a statue of Albert, the Prince Consort to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter (104, 41). His bronze group The deerstalker, generally regarded as his finest work, was purchased by public subscription and erected in Northernhay Gardens in 1878 (45). At a banquet held to mark this occasion the sculptor gave a speech in which he said that Acland and William, 10th Earl of Devon ‘above all others were the founders of his professional career, and his first friends, who helped him on cheerfully and hopefully to try and do big things’ (Builder, 1882, ii, 669).
As an established sculptor Stephens secured several significant institutional commissions. He provided a statue of Joseph Priestley for the Oxford University Museum in 1860 (32). The following year he started work on a figure of Alfred the Great in the neatherd’s cottage, commissioned by the Corporation of London for the Egyptian Hall in the Mansion House (35). In 1873 he carved statues of Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Christoper Wren and Sir Joshua Reynolds for the façade of Burlington House, which had recently become the home of the Royal Academy (105). Stephens was elected an ARA in 1864, but it was generally believed that his election came about because he was confused with Alfred Stevens.
He died of bronchitis, at his home, 110 Buckingham Palace Road, London, on 9 November 1882. His grave in Kensal Green cemetery is marked with a simple ledger and a low headstone. Soon after his death, Samuel Carter Hall, editor of the Art Journal, described Stephens as ‘a man of large worth in private life – a sculptor of the highest genius’ (Hall II, 1883, 243-4). George Pycroft, the author of Art in Devonshire, remembered him as ‘one of those genuine, unpretending, honest beings that are always appreciated’ (Pycroft 1883, cited by Gunnis 1968, 372). His works have nonetheless been little studied.
EH
Literary References: AJ, 1882, 379; Builder 43, 1882, 669; Hall II, 1883, 242, 243-4; DNB (Graves); Gunnis 1968, 371-2; Avery and Marsh 1985, 333; Curl 2001, 242; ODNB (Rev. Worthington)
Archival References: RA Premium list
Wills and Administrations: PPR, will, 4 January 1883, fol 79, estate valued at £1,566 0s 4d