Details of Sculptor

Surname

Clarke

Alternative Surname

First Name

George, of Birmingham

Initial of Surname

C

Year of Birth/Baptism

1796

Flourished

Year of Death

1842

Biographical Details

A pupil of Sir Francis Chantrey, he set up in Birmingham after leaving his master’s studio. In 1821, whilst living at 24 Ann Street, Birmingham, he sent his first bust to the Royal Academy exhibition (4). By 1825 he had moved to London, where he lived in Drury Lane and then Museum Street.
In 1826 he was responsible for a statue commemorating the naval officer and political reformer John Cartwright (2). This commission reveals his opportunism: Patrick Macdowell had won the contract but the subscription fund failed to realise the desired sum. Clarke offered to execute the work for the money already collected. Macdowell recorded in his autobiography that Clarke could afford to carry out the work because of ‘connexions’ (in Birmingham) that Macdowell lacked (AJ 1850, 8). Macdowell also claimed that Clarke failed to impress the committee with the likeness of Cartwright and, with Macdowell’s consent, used his original model.
In 1829 Clarke was renting premises in Charles Street, Covent Garden, where he executed a colossal head of the Duke of Wellington (10), ‘the first sight of which’, as the Literary Gazette rhapsodised that year, irresistibly drew from them the exclamation ‘prodigious’ (Lit Gaz 1829, 586). A representative from the journal, who visited the sculptor’s studio, felt that Clarke’s many busts evinced talents ‘which, under auspicious circumstances, will no doubt raise their possessor to a distinguished rank in his profession’ (Lit Gaz 1829, 586). Unfortunately for Clarke his circumstances were insufficiently auspicious and in 1832 he became bankrupt (a fact recorded by Macdowell with satisfaction).
In January 1835 Clarke advertised plaster casts after his busts of Col Harvey and Lord Wodehouse (29, 30) in the Norfolk Chronicle, adding that ‘early application is solicited as Mr Clarke’s stay is limited on account of his professional engagements in London’. In 1839 he exhibited from 34 Gower Place, London. On 12 March 1842, he died very suddenly in the shop of a Birmingham surgeon in New Hall-Street. He left a family of 9 children with no means of support. At the time of his death he was engaged in the arduous task of casting the leaves for the capital of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, but had only completed two of them.
Literary References : Lit Gaz 1829, 586; GM 1842, 1, 453; AJ 1850, 8; Graves II, 1905-6, 68; Gunnis 1968, 103