Details of Sculptor

Surname

Woolner

Alternative Surname

First Name

Thomas RA

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1825

Flourished

Year of Death

1892

Biographical Details

Woolner was a sculptor, poet and founder member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. There has been increasing interest in his work in recent years as it has been reassessed in the light of his Pre-Raphaelite connections.
He was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, on 17 December 1825, the son of Thomas and Rebecca Woolner and went to school in Ipswich until he was about ten, when the family moved to London, where his father took a job with the Post Office. His artistic talent was apparent from an early age and when he was about 13 he was sent to study with the painter Charles Behnes. Behnes died soon after and Woolner was then taken on by his brother William Behnes. Woolner must already have made a good impression on the well-established Behnes, for he was accepted as a pupil without fee, provided that when Woolner was sufficiently advanced he should work for a period at a reduced rate of pay. Woolner remained in Behnes’s studio, at Osnaburgh Street, Regent’s Park, for about six years.
In 1842, while still employed by Behnes and with his encouragement, Woolner joined the Royal Academy Schools. He later claimed to have learned little at the Schools since he had already received all the formal training he needed from Behnes. The following year he showed his first work at the Royal Academy (173), an exhibiting space he would continue to use regularly throughout his life.
In 1844 he exhibited a model, The death of Boadicea (35) at Westminster Hall, hoping to obtain sculptural commissions for the Houses of Parliament. This attracted considerable attention: one reviewer praised Woolner’s dramatic treatment and the powerful emotions aroused by the figure (Athenæum, 1844, 674) and another noted that the work was ‘produced under extraordinary disadvantages’ and greeted it as ‘an earnest of better things’ (Lit Gaz, 1844, 483). This comment probably refers to Woolner’s straitened circumstances during his early career, when no financial support could be provided by his family.
The sculptor, who was then living at 15 Mary Street, Regent’s Park, won the Society of Arts silver medal in 1845 for a relief of Affection (174). He showed several ideal pieces through the exhibiting societies over the next few years, including Puck (39), a rare surviving early work, but was increasingly obliged to turn to portraiture as a means of making a living. His first portrait medallion, of the poet Coventry Patmore (179), was cast in 1849. Another of Mrs Patmore followed (181) and elicited warm praise from her husband. Patmore introduced Woolner to Tennyson and helped arrange sittings for his first representation of the poet laureate, completed in 1850. These small scale images of well-known figures were particularly lucrative as they could be cast and sold in large numbers.
Woolner was the only sculptor among the seven original members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), formed in 1848. They believed that they could find in Nature ‘the one means of purifying modern art’ and aimed to produce work of ‘excelling truthfulness and strong poetic spirit’ (Hunt I 1905, 112-3, 118). He participated actively in the group’s activities and published poetry in the Pre-Raphaelite journal, The Germ.
Woolner’s dedication to these principles is evident in two monuments to William Wordsworth and in much of his later work. The memorial in Grasmere church (2) is another profile portrait, flanked by meticulously carved spring flowers. It was admired both for its verisimilitude and as a depiction of the poet’s intellectual character (although the Gardener's Chronicle later pointed out that he had mistaken the greater celandine for the lesser celandine). He provided a second, more complex design, in which he sought symbolically to ‘embody the “Individual Mind” of Wordsworth’ (Graves VIII, 1905-6, 355) for the national memorial to be raised in Westminster Abbey. The poet’s statue was to be flanked by allegorical groups representing ‘Control of Passion (Being the basis of Law)’ and ‘Nature contemplated to the Glory of God (Being the Basis of Religion)’ (ibid). Despite his lofty aspirations,Woolner lost in competition to Frederick Thrupp, a more established but now less well regarded artist.
This disappointment and, perhaps, an unhappy love affair caused Woolner to depart for Australia. He set sail from Gravesend on 24 July 1852, hoping to make his fortune in the gold fields. Among the friends who saw him off was Ford Madox Brown, whose painting The Last of England was inspired by the event. Woolner soon discovered that it was not easy to make money as a prospector and started to work as a sculptor in Australia. In spite of problems in obtaining materials, he opened a studio in Melbourne and built up a successful practice in portrait medallions. He wrote to his father on 10 July 1853, ‘I have my tools a little in order now and mean to work hard. I get 25 pounds for a medallion here. In England they would not give me 25 pence’ (Woolner 1917, 61). In 1853-54 Woolner modelled some 24 medallions of Australian colonists. He then returned to England, hoping to secure the commission for a statue of W C Wentworth for Sydney. Again he was unsuccessful, in spite of the popularity of his earlier medallion of this leading Australian statesman (211).
Woolner’s fortunes now improved, for he received several commissions for portraits and ideal works. His busts and medallions of Tennyson (73, 123, 126, 180, 214, 229), Carlyle (96, 184, 213, 255) and Browning (219) established his reputation as a portrait sculptor. A first bust of Tennyson (73), acquired by Trinity College, Cambridge, made a favourable impression and led to further commissions, including statues of Macaulay (46) and Whewell (53) for the college. His bust of W E Gladstone, 1866, on a pedestal with reliefs from The Iliad (97), a memorial commissioned for Oxford University, further increased his reputation. Many of Woolner’s sitters, including Tennyson, whom he much admired, became close friends and furthered his career.
His first major public statue, of Sir Francis Bacon (43), completed in 1857, was for the Oxford University Museum, a building project to which several members of the PRB contributed. This was followed by statues for India (52, 55, 56, 59), New Zealand (47), Australia (64) and Singapore (69), admired for their realism, characterisation and the sculptor’s handling of contemporary costume. There were also failures: a late work, the statue of George Dawson for Birmingham, 1881 (67) was thought ‘so ludicrously bad that after the deceased’s fellow townsmen had laughed at it for several years they agreed to take it down’ (ILN, 15 Oct 1892, 475).
Woolner’s most poignant works are Brother and sister (44), completed in 1862 for the International Exhibition and Mother and child, which took more than a decade to materialise, in 1867 (49). The first, commissioned by the collector and organiser of the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, Sir Thomas Fairbairn, is a portrait of his two children, described ‘almost as a manifesto of Woolner’s particular artistic ideas and skills’ (Read and Barnes 1991, 29). It is a sensitive psychological portrait of the two deaf and dumb children which clearly shows the bond between them. The second is an ideal work, a full size statue of a mother teaching her child the Lord’s Prayer and this image of Christian maternal tenderness is contrasted with relief scenes on the plinth of pre-Christian barbarism. The group was commissioned by Lady Pauline Trevelyan, who was herself an artist and critic, as part of an ambitious Pre-Raphaelite decorative scheme at Wallington Hall, Northumbs. Many of these works were disseminated to a wider audience through photographic reproductions.
Whilst working on Mother and child, Woolner married Alice Gertrude Waugh, a model for that composition and the sister of Fanny, who became the wife of Holman Hunt. They had two sons and three daughters and lived at Welbeck Street, London and Mayfield, Sussex.
Late in his career, in 1872, he was elected an associate of the Academy and he became a full member three years later, depositing as his diploma work a version of the relief of Achilles and Pallas shouting from the trenches from the Gladstone memorial (97). In 1877 he was appointed professor of sculpture on the death of Henry Weekes RA, but he claimed never to have lectured and resigned in 1879.
As a young man Woolner conformed physically to PRB ideals of beauty, with his robust, square-featured, noble face, thick masses of brownish auburn hair and penetrating eyes (F G Stephens, AJ, 1894, 82). He was considered energetic, honest and dedicated to his work and his extensive correspondence is full of gossip, anecdote and humour. He could also be blunt, which made him some enemies. His obituary focussed on his dedication to perfectionism, irrespective of financial considerations. ‘In life as in art he was the uncompromising foe of sham, of claptrap and of superficiality’ (The Times, 8 October 1892, 10).
The demand for Woolner’s work remained high until the end of his life and he supplemented his income by dealing in pictures, so he died in comparative wealth, leaving an estate valued at £64,000. In his last decade, Woolner’s naturalistic style was challenged by the work of the New Sculptors and his last work, The housemaid (71), completed in plaster only a few weeks before his death, can be seen as his response. The life-sized figure of a servant girl wringing out a cloth combines realism with a restrained classical grace and contrasts with the more dramatic effects achieved by the New Sculptors. Until recently Woolner had little place in the extensive Pre-Raphaelite literature; ‘The Last of England might as well have been The Last of Woolner’ (Read 1984, 97-8). It is now acknowledged however that his close involvement in the Brotherhood, the truth to nature that was so characteristic of his work, his contributions to a number of Pre-Raphaelite decorative schemes and his prolific output make him a key figure in the movement.
EH
Literary References: Palgrave 1866, 83, 206, 208-10, 221, 224-5, 253-4, 260, 294-5; Athenæum 1892, 522-3; Magazine of Art 1892-3, 71-2, viii; AJ 1894, 80-6; Graves VIII, 1905-6, 354-7; Woolner 1917, passim; DNB XXI, 905-7; Ormond 1967, 25-7; Gunnis 1968, 443-5; Cox 1977-8, 64-75; Trevelyan 1978 (1), passim; Trevelyan 1978 (2), 200-5; Trevelyan 1978-9, 1-37; Ormond and Rogers 3, 1979-81, 226; Cox 1981, 1-27; Cox 1981-2, 1-21; Ormond 1981, 1-31; Read 1982, passim; Bronkhurst 1983, 586-97; Read 1984, 97-110; Read and Barnes 1991, passim; Parris 1994, 41; Grove 33, 1996, 373-5 (Stocker); ODNB (Stevens); Lukitsh 2005, 1-16; Neale 2009, 382-387 (repr)
Additional MS Sources: Corr and misc papers, BL MSS, Brotherton MSS, Bodl, Fitz, John Rylands, Co-Op MSS, Robinson, Wordsworth Lib, Tennyson RC, SRO, Rosenbach, Stanford, Mass Hist Soc, NSW Lib, Durham Univ Lib GB-0033-Add-838; Woolner’s notes for Palgrave’s Golden Treasury,1860-61, BL MSS, Add 42126; Studio diaries for 1864 and 1874, HMI; MS of My Beautiful Lady, Bodl, MS Eng poet e 58; papers concerning commission of statues in the Museum Court, Oxf Univ Mus, history of the building archive; Woolner’s Australian Journal, 31 Oct 1852 – 25 May 1854 (photocopy), Bodl, Ms Facs d 152
Administration: PPR, 7 February 1893, effects £65,866 19s 3d, resworn November 1894 £65,766 19s 3d
Auction Catalogues: Woolner 1875; Woolner 1883, Woolner 1895; Woolner 1913; Woolner and others 1895; Woolner and others 1913 (1); Woolner and others 1913 (2)
Portraits of the Sculptor: ‘Mr B -’s Tyger’, a caricature of Thomas Woolner when a young man in William Behnes’s studio, Woolner 1917, fol 14; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1852, pencil drawing, NPG 3848; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 16 April 1853, sketch in a letter, Thomas Woolner as ‘Fire Fiend’, Woolner 1917, 56; photo, c1860-1865, Ormond 1981, 5 (repr); Ernest Edwards, photo for Men of Eminence, vol II, 1864, NPG; J P Mayall, photo, Woolner at work on the bust of Tennyson in 1873, NPG x13286; Alphonse Legros, 1874, painting, Ipswich borough museums and galls; Lock and Whitfield, photo for Men of Mark, 1877, NPG; A C Gow, 1883, painting, Aberdeen art gall; after T B Wirgman, woodcut, for Century Mag, 1883, BM; Ralph Winwood Robinson, 1889, platinum print, NPG x7402; J M Johnstone, after a photo, woodcut, Mag of Art 1891; Ralph W Robinson, 1891, photo, NPG x7402; engraving, AJ, 1894, 81; photo, ‘Thomas Woolner, The Sculptor among his Men’, Woolner 1917, fol 119; 170 studio photos, HMI; various photos, NPG x5126-44