Background
ROBERTS-Jones, Ivor was born on November 2, 1913 in Oswestry. Son of William Roberts-Jones and Florence Owles.
ROBERTS-Jones, Ivor was born on November 2, 1913 in Oswestry. Son of William Roberts-Jones and Florence Owles.
He studied at Oswestry School and Worksop College before attending Goldsmiths College, London and the Royal Academy of Arts.
include Resident Advisor, Arts Council travelling exhibitions, Battersea Park, London, National Museum of Wales; major works of sculpture include Sir Winston Churchill, Parliament Square, London 1973, Oslo 1975, New Orleans 1976, Janus Rider Group at Harlech Castle 1982; w"orks purchased by Tate Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Wales, Beaverbrook Foundation, Arts Council, et cetera; public portrait communications include memorial statue to Augustus John, Fordingbridge 1965, Earl Attlee, Members’ Lobby, House of Commons 1979, commemorative figure of Rupert Brooke, Rugby 1987 and memorial to Field Marshal Lord Slim of Burma in Whitehall, London 1990; other portrait communications include Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, Yehudi Menuhin, Somerset Maugham, and many others; Honorary Doctor of Laws (Wales) 1983.He is best known for his sculpted heads of notable people such as Yehudi Menuhin and George Thomas, Viscount Tonypandy. During the Second World War he served in the Burma Campaign. From 1964 he taught sculpture at Goldsmiths.
He received his first full-scale commission in 1964 for the memorial sculpture of Augustus John (1878-1961), the iconic Bohemian British painter.
Nonetheless, the final 1967 single-figure sculpture was dramatically successful and led to Roberts-Jones" election as an Associate of the Royal Academy. This sculpture was erected in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, near John"s last home.
In 1971 he was commissioned to produce the full-length statue of Winston Churchill which now stands in Parliament Square, London. The organiser of the appeal to raise money for the statue did not like its initial appearance, and reported: "At the moment the head is undoubtedly like Churchill, but perhaps not quite right of him at the pinnacle of his career.
The cheeks, the eyes, the forehead and the top of the head require improvement.
I told Mr Roberts-Jones that above the eyes I thought I was looking at Mussolini." The sculptor promised to "remove the dome of the head to bring about a lowering of the forehead".
Married Monica Booth in 1940.