Details of Sculptor

Surname

Bacon

Alternative Surname

First Name

John I, RA

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

1740

Flourished

Year of Death

1799

Biographical Details

Bacon was a designer, modeller and sculptor, a singularly successful and influential commercial artist and the first great British sculptor of the Industrial Revolution. He was born in Southwark, London on 24 November 1740, the son of Thomas Bacon (†1767), a cloth-worker, and Anne, née Greenwood, and was apprenticed to Nicholas Crisp of Bow churchyard, a jeweller and watchmaker, on 7 June 1755. Crisp owned a porcelain factory in Vauxhall, where Bacon apparently first saw the models that inspired him to become a sculptor (Euro Mag 1790, 83-4). By 1759 he had begun to make his own models and that year he was awarded a premium by the newly-formed Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce for a figure of Peace (122).
Bacon’s submission to the Society was no doubt encouraged by Crisp, who was one of its founders and a member of the award-giving committee. Bacon won premiums again in 1760, 1761 and 1764 (209, 210, 214, 215, 216). In July 1764 he left Crisp, who was now bankrupt, but he continued to enter works for Society of Arts prizes until 1778 (127, 130, 134, 216). He later wrote to the Society expressing gratitude for their encouragement, which had enabled him ‘to pursue those studies which a disadvantageous situation had otherwise made difficult, if not impossible’ (Bacon/RSA).
He married Elizabeth Wade at St Saviour, Southwark on 2 March 1767, and their first child, Ann, was born in 1768. That year Bacon exhibited with the Society of Artists, giving his address as ‘Mr Tucker’s, Cox’s Square, Spital Fields’ (Graves 1907, 18). By 1769 he had moved from the City to George Yard, Soho Square.
Bacon seems to have worked principally as a modeller from 1764 to 1769. The first known record of his work for Wedgwood is a letter dated 21 March 1769 from Peter Swift, Wedgwood’s London agent: ‘Mr. Bacon hath brought a model of Apollo and Daphne (219) which I have got a cast of - he asks for your futhur instructions since which I have found a paper with two drawings of vases and some references for modelling’ (Wedgwood MSS E5/30858, Swift to Wedgwood, 21 March 1769). Between July 1769 and February 1771 he also received payments totalling £104 9s 7d for models prepared for the Chelsea-Derby factory (228).
From the evidence of Bacon’s trade card, c1764-6 (BM Banks Coll, 106.2) he also worked for Daniel Pincot, the artificial stone manufacturer of Paternoster Row, Spitalfields, but it was with Pincot’s remarkable successor, Eleanor Coade, that Bacon found extensive employment. Bacon appears to have begun working for Coade in Lambeth shortly after she opened her business in 1769. In September 1771 The Daily Advertiser announced that Coade’s manufactory was now superintended by Bacon, a sculptor ‘whose merit as an artist’ was ‘too well known to need any encomiums’ (Kelly 1990, 40). His early models for the manufacturers were direct copies, executed with notable confidence. He used classical sources for Antonia with urn (218) and French rococo elements for Apollo and Daphne, both for Wedgwood, and was to work intermittently for manufacturers throughout his later career. Bacon clearly also had loftier ambitions for on 24 June 1769 he enrolled as a student at the Royal Academy Schools.
He won the first gold medal given by the RA for sculpture in 1769 with a relief, Aeneas and his family escaping from Troy (217). This was purchased by the architect, Sir William Chambers, but later copied by Bacon for other clients. In 1770 Bacon was elected an ARA, and in 1771 he exhibited a life-size statue of Mars with the Society of Arts (127), which he later presented to that Society. This figure apparently drew an exclamation from the painter, Benjamin West: ‘If this is his first essay, what will this man be when he arrives at maturity?’ (Cunningham 3, 203). The Mars also impressed William Markham, Archbishop of York, who commissioned a bust of George III from Bacon for Christ Church College, Oxford (158). It is not clear where Bacon learnt his skills as a sculptor, but this early work in marble is a remarkably fluent performance. The softness of the modelling, the fine carving of the chains and robes, and the harmony and accessibility of the portrait charmed the royal household, who ordered three replicas. Bacon’s biographer, Richard Cecil, later recounted that the King sat for the bust and was impressed by Bacon’s courtly manners. He appears to have won the King’s favour and to have benefited from his support in many later public competitions.
In June 1774 Bacon took a long lease on a house at 17 Newman Street, rated at £60, which was to be the home and workshop of the Bacon family for two generations. Bacon’s practice was becoming increasingly diverse; he was Coade’s chief designer, he continued to work for Wedgwood (133, 139, 221) and he was employed by Matthew Boulton, who was producing a wide range of ornamental goods in Sheffield plate (128).
Bacon was meanwhile developing his practice as a sculptor, carving more busts for Christ Church, Oxford (159-61) and exhibiting a marble chimneypiece at the RA in 1775 (184). He was also beginning to establish himself as a monumental sculptor. His first Westminster Abbey monument, a bust of the Earl of Halifax, 1772 (7), was followed by a portrait-medallion with a muse commemorating the poet Thomas Gray (8). His monument to Thomas Guy (9), the founder of Guy’s Hospital, is one of his outstanding achievements. A tableau recalling the parable of the Good Samaritan, with the founder in contemporary dress, raising up a sick, cadaverous man, is placed before a low relief of the hospital’s courtyard. Bacon presented a bust of the sick man’s head as his diploma work after his belated election as an academician in February 1778 (167). The institution had rejected three earlier applications.
The Academy’s reservations about Bacon were not shared by the King, whose influence helped Bacon win the commission for the monument in Westminster Abbey to William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, in 1779 (21). Chatham was presented in contemporary dress. The work cost over £6,000 and was considered his masterpiece. An anonymous writer in the European Magazine felt that it would ‘at all times remain a proof of the genius of the artist who produced it’ (Euro Mag, August 1790, 84). William Cowper, extolled the sculptor’s skills in his poem, The Task: ‘Bacon there / Gives more than female beauty to a stone / And Chatham’s eloquence to marble lips’. Horace Walpole noted that a ‘numerous crowd of spectators’ turned out for its opening in October 1782 (Anecdotes 1937, vol 5, 138-9). Whilst working on the Westminster Abbey monument, Bacon was busy on another memorial to Chatham for the Guildhall (18). The bustling asymmetry of the Guildhall monument, which depicts Chatham all'antica, appealed to contemporary sensibilities and earned Bacon a bonus from his patrons. A later generation of artists disapproved of its ‘Baroque confusion’ and one critic suggested that the compositional elements appeared to have been poured out of a wagon from the top of the pyramid (Cunningham 1829-33, 3, 212).
Bacon’s wife died in February 1782 and he married Martha Holland at Marylebone church in October that year. By now he was a much respected sculptor and in 1784 John Deare, who occasionally worked for Bacon, called him ‘the first man in the kingdom in sculpture’ (Smith 1828, vol 2, 311). In 1784 the Morning Chronicle wrote of the ‘beauteous shrine’ to Captain Foulis in Woodford (20): ‘Thus honour’d, who would murmur at their doom? / Who would not die to gain so fair a tomb?’ (Anecdotes 1937, 139). Bacon’s monumental practice was in a process of continual expansion. To increase his output he made modifications to the pointing machine, used to transfer dimensions from the model to the block. By the 1790s he employed about twenty assistants and the premises at Newman Street were expanded to incorporate more workshops linking them to the road and so improving accessibility for transport.
Robert Cecil, the Methodist minister at St John’s chapel, Bedford Row and a personal friend of the sculptor, later claimed that Bacon saw sculpture as a means to encourage Christian morality. The pelican in her piety, an emblem for Christian charity, recurred so often in his work that it was said that Bacon routinely asked clients if the deceased had ever displayed even the slightest tendency to philanthropy, so that he could justify utilising ‘our old friend the pelican’ (Cunningham 1829-33, vol 3, 243). Nevertheless, he also made use of elements from a classical iconography, particularly the grieving woman by a cinerary urn.
In the 1780s Bacon became one of the few sculptors of his time to work in bronze. He installed a furnace in his premises and used new casting techniques, learnt from a founder who had worked under John Nost III (Bacon’s assistant Benjamin Grant later attempted to take the credit for these innovations). Bacon’s figures of Hercules and Atlas for the Radcliffe Library in Oxford (143) were followed by an ambitious composition for Somerset House, a statue of King George III with a personification of the River Thames, cast in 1789 (148). Bacon’s River god was taken from a model he had made for Coade c1777 (139).
Bacon, whose patriotism had an intensity rare among Academicians, was horrified by events in France during the Revolution. He armed and drilled his apprentices in readiness for a French invasion, and chided a preacher at his church for referring to ‘equality’ in a sermon (Farington, 3, 765). This chauvinism helped cement his position as the King’s favourite sculptor and other artists grumbled that Bacon made use of his access to the royal family. James Wyatt, the architect, told Farington in 1798 that, when Parliament voted funds for monuments to national heroes in St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, Bacon suggested to the King that he might execute them all in a single cut-price contract (Farington, 3, 1119). The proposal, which was not implemented, prompted Henry Fuseli, the painter, to retort: ‘If Bacon is to do all the stone-work for the Army and Navy, they ought also to give him the contract for hams and pork’ (Cunningham 1829-33, vol 3, 223). Bacon’s son, John Bacon II, called Fuseli’s slur ‘a gratuitous, unqualified falsehood’ in The Builder (1863, 167-8), but Bacon did enter competition models for all the proposed monuments and his prices were always the lowest (St Paul’s Monuments Costs).
His extraordinary success cannot be attributed solely to royal favour. He was willing to bid for any contract and had an unerring ability to find a pleasing and accessible design, a skill that had been developed during his years as a commercial modeller. The statue of Admiral Rodney (150) helped to open up an export market for Bacon, who subsequently received numerous commissions for monuments sent to Jamaica (41, 49, 56, 72, 74, 82, 96, 105, 108, 110, 112).
Bacon carved the first two monuments erected in St Paul’s Cathedral, for the prison reformer, John Howard (83), and the great lexicographer, Samuel Johnson, the latter originally intended for Westminster Abbey (89). Both are presented in classical draperies, a decision that met a mixed reception. Bacon justified his decision to classicise Johnson’s effigy in the Gentleman’s Magazine in March 1796 (p180) and argued the propriety of classical dress in debates on the garb for JCF Rossi RA’s Lord Cornwallis at Academy committee meetings (Farington, 2, 369). The extent of work in preparation that year is clear from a letter to Francis Humberston Mackenzie: ‘For myself I am buried in a marble Quarry besides two or three considerable works not yet begun Johnson’s Howard for St Paul’s Ld Heathfields for Buckley near Plymouth; Ld Effingham’s for Jamaica belong to the first class Admiral Pocock’s for Westm Abbey; Sir J Cust’s; Ld Cornwallis for the East India Company...’ (Bacon/Mackenzie, 12 April 1796).
At the time of his death he was working on further monuments for St Paul’s, one to Sir William Jones, which has a fine oriental relief (117) and another to Thomas Dundas (120). He also designed the large and ambitious relief for the pediment of East India House, with a resolute King George III, garbed all’antica, commanding a pyramidal throng of figures representing the commerce of East and West (206). These works and numerous others were completed by the sculptor’s sons, John Bacon II and Thomas Bacon, who gradually took over the workshop during their father’s later years. Bacon’s obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine related that the sons had ‘almost entirely modelled and finished… every capital performance’ since 1792 (GM 1799, vol 69, pt 2, 810).
Bacon died at Newman Street of an ‘inflammation in the bowels’ on 7 August 1799. Farington recorded his death, noting that Benjamin West ‘expressed his sorrow for the loss of Mr Bacon’ and adjourned an RA committee. West, Farington, Joseph Wilton and others ‘sat together abt an hour & then separated’ (Farington, 4, 1264).
He left £17,000 and considerable property to be divided among his wife and eight surviving children, but he gave his youngest son by his first marriage, John Bacon II, the opportunity to take over the house and workshops in Newman Street. He left a bequest to the Eclectic Society, a non-conformist group, and 12 guineas for the purchase of a teapot by which they could remember him. Bacon was a committed Methodist and numerous contemporaries testified to his piety. He was buried next to his first wife at Whitefield’s Tabernacle, Tottenham Court, under a slab with an epitaph composed by himself: ‘What I was as an artist seemed of some importance while I lived; what I really was as a believer in Jesus Christ is the only thing of importance to me now’. The church was destroyed in the Second World War, but a drawing of the monument survives (VAM E.1047-8).
Bacon'’s lengthy obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine, written by Robert Cecil, describes his attractive appearance and personality, but also indicates that he was dogmatic in articulating his Christian beliefs: ‘In communicating his ideas he was sometimes forcible and happy, but frequently circuitous and obscure. Religion was with him, his grand concern’ (GM, 1799, 810). Cecil expanded his account of the sculptor into a Memoir, which told the reader more about Bacon’s activities as a pillar of the church than about his professional career.
A profile of the sculptor published in 1790 in the European Magazine described Bacon as a truly national artist, who had acquired his reputation without studying abroad, a stirring exemplar of home-matured talent. Later critics contrasted his work unfavourably with the international neoclassicism of Wilton, Banks and their heirs. Flaxman, in his Address on the Death of Thomas Banks, wrote that he showed ‘much ingenuity’ but was ‘void of greatness and simplicity’ (Farington, 5, 2511). In his life of Bacon, Allan Cunningham disparagingly contrasted the sculptor’s background in the manufacturing industry, his appeal to the ‘grosser faculties of the people at large’ and his limited powers of invention, with the achievement of Banks, the progressive neoclassicist who attracted august patrons. Cunningham also tore the veil from Bacon’s Christian stance, drawing attention to his grasping approach to business. Peter Cunningham later expressed remorse at the harsh judgment meted out by his father and declared that Bacon was ‘one of the greatest sculptors England has produced’ (Builder 1863, 168).
Bacon was one of the most influential British modellers and sculptors of his time. His works were among the effects of Robert Adam, John Cheere and Joseph Rose Jnr. He trained the celebrated sculptor Anne Seymour Damer, employed Joseph Theakston and John Deare, and exerted a formative influence on E H Baily. He also trained or employed a host of minor monumental sculptors including George Napper, John Osborne and John Spiller. Bacon’s ability to turn out large numbers of well-carved but repetitive monuments made him a precursor of the mass-producing ‘New Road’ workshops of the 19th century. Among these was the practice set up by his son John with Samuel Manning, whose brother Charles Manning had been Bacon’s pupil. Bacon’s designs for the manufacturers provided an eclectic range of sophisticated styles and subjects for consumption by a mass-market. His work in this field was continued by his pupil Henry Webber.
MGS
Literary References: GM, Jan 1790, 3-4; Euro Mag 1790, 83-4; Univ Mag. 1800, pt 2, 184; Farington, passim; GM 69, 2, 1799, 808-10; Cecil 1801; New Mont Mag, 5, Jan-June 1816, 37; Cunningham 1829-33, vol 3, 200-46; Builder 1863, 167-8; Graves 1907, 18; Anecdotes 1937, 5, 138-9, 144; Cox-Johnson 1961, passim; Cox-Johnson 1962, 705-9; Hutchison 1960-62, 133; Gunnis 1968, 24-28; Clifford 1985, 288-304; Goodison 1985, 241-242; Tattersall 1985, 36-42; Whinney 1988, passim; Kelly 1990, passim; Dawson 1999, 30; Ward-Jackson 2003, passim, but esp 447-8; Coltman 2009, 230-1; Craske 2014
Archival References: Letters from Bacon to his wife and son, 1790s, private coll (Cox-Johnson 1961, 26-7); miscellaneous letters and family memoirs transcribed in Cecil 1801; RA Council Minutes, vol 1, 1770, fol 85; Bacon / Boulton; Bacon /RSA (Cox-Johnson 1962, 705-9); Bacon /Tracy; Bacon / Long; Bacon / Howard; Bacon / Mackenzie; Wedgwood-Bacon Receipt; Press Cuttings 1723-1800, c.fol 107; St Paul’s Monuments Costs (transcribed in Whinney 1988, 470 n13); IGI
Will: PROB 11/1328 p171
Collections of Drawings: Sheet of designs for pedestals, pencil on paper, c1775, priv coll, reproduced in Clifford 1985, 296; 19 designs for monuments, VAM E1531-1931, E1539-1556-1931
Miscellaneous Drawings: Designs for unidentified funerary monuments, HMI 15/1991 (Friedman 1993, 91, cat no 15, repr); study for a wine-cooler, pencil and wash, RA; unsuccessful competition design for the monument to Captain James Montagu, St Paul’s Cathedral (competition won by John Flaxman), BM PDL 1878, 0713.1248-50 and for the relief 1934, 0320.1; portrait of the artist’s wife in profile, BM PDL 1943, 1102.3; design for an unidentified monument, BM PDL 1878, 0713.1777; design for an unidentified monument, Chicago AI; pencil drawing of son, John Bacon II, VAM E.410-1943, ‘Uncle Thomas’ E.403-1943, ‘Aunt Raybould’ E.404-1943, ‘Aunt Nancy’ E.408-1943 and an unidentified sitter E.407-1943
Portraits of the Sculptor: William Bate, after Mason Chamberlin, 1785, enamel on copper, NPG 6289; John Russell, c1792, crayon, VAM 94.D.35 (Clifford 1990, 231, repr and Cox-Johnson 1961, 18, 24 repr), engraving after this work NPG D12044; George Dance, drawing, RA, engravings after this work NPG D12044 and D12140; Henry Singleton, The Royal Academicians under the Presidentship of Benjamin West, oil on canvas, 1793-5, RA; John Bacon II, bust, 1798, exhib RA (Smith 1828, vol 2, 165; Graves 1905-6, 88); self-portrait (?), BM PDL 1943, 1102.2
Representation of the Sculptor’s Premises: Plan of the house and workshops of 17 Newman Street, London County Council MS E/BN/44 (Cox-Johnson 1961, 24-5 pl 2)