John Skeaping RA
John Skeaping RA
1901 - 1980
Born: 1901, South Woodford, Essex; Died: London, 1980.
British Sculptor, draughtsman and teacher of sculpture. Also an "animalier" - one who produces works of animals.
John Skeaping first studied sculpture for one year, in 1914, at Blackheath School of Art, London. He then attended the School of Art at Goldsmiths College between 1915 and 1917 and the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1917 to 1919. Skeaping later secured a place at the most prestigious art school of all, The Royal Academy Schools (1919 – 1920). He was naturally talented, particularly in his ability to carve a wide variety of stone types, and was awarded numerous prizes throughout his training. One such prize was the Royal Academy Gold Medal. While at the RA he was awarded a Travelling Scholarship which took him to Italy where he visited cities including Rome, Florence, and Sienna. In 1924 Skeaping won the “Prix de Rome” in the category of Sculpture, a highly esteemed arts scholarship. While in Rome, Skeaping met a runner-up of the scholarship, the young sculptor Barbara Hepworth. The two sculptors married in Florence the following year (1925).
After Skeaping and Hepworth's return to London in 1926, their creative activities overlapped and influenced one another’s. They exhibited together from their shared studio in 1927, and then again at recognised galleries associated with modern art; Tooth's Gallery (Bond Street, London) in 1928. Such exhibitions had important impacts on both their careers, with Skeaping soon joining influential exhibiting societies the London Group (1928 to 1934) and the Seven and Five Society (1932). He divorced from Hepworth in 1933 (they had been separated two years earlier).
Skeaping achieved a professional status as a talented designer and illustrator. Throughout his sculpture, paintings, and works on paper, Skeaping was fascinated by the forms and dynamics of animals; a favourite location of his was the zoo. In 1933 he produced a series of illustrations for The Whipsnade Zoo Animal Book and through his friend, Julian Huxley (secretary to the Zoological Society of London), painted a mural inside the society's restaurant. Skeaping received a significant commission from Wedgwood in 1927 where he created a series of ten animals for production in glazed ceramics of various colour. Among the animal figures were antelope, buffalo, deer, monkeys, tiger, and polar Bear. Other illustrations and published works include Animal Drawing (1936), How to Draw Horses (1941), and How to Draw Dogs (1961).
In his teaching capacity Skeaping taught at the Central School of Arts from 1930 to 1939 and at the Royal College of Art from 1948. He was Professor of Sculpture at the RCA between 1953 and 1959. During the Second World War he entered to intelligence corps as an Official War Artist and served briefly as a member of the British Special Forces, the SAS. After the war and during his final decades Skeaping spent long periods in Mexico and France, and received a number of commissions to produce bronze portraits of champion racehorses. He was made an associate of the Royal Academy in 1950 and became a full academician in 1960.
Skeaping remains a marginalised figure in the history of British modernism. Although incredibly talented and an important contributor during the late 1920s and early 1930 (and married to one of the movement's leading personalities), he avoided international-wide debates about aesthetics and modernism. In short, Skeaping's work was too conventional. He eventually became disillusioned by the direction towards abstraction which the sculptors Hepworth and Henry Moore had taken modern British sculpture, and he never returned to it. Today he is probably best known as a painter of racehorses, but his involvement with key modernists, and during the developing stages of their ideas and practice, has caused a reappraisal of Skeaping's work, albeit rather limited.
Skeaping is represented by the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Academy, and the Tate Collection. Holders outside the capital include the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), and public collections in Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester, among others. International collections include those in Australia, USA, and Japan. The majority of his sculptures are held in private collections.
Benjamin Angwin - March 2015
British Sculptor, draughtsman and teacher of sculpture. Also an "animalier" - one who produces works of animals.
John Skeaping first studied sculpture for one year, in 1914, at Blackheath School of Art, London. He then attended the School of Art at Goldsmiths College between 1915 and 1917 and the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1917 to 1919. Skeaping later secured a place at the most prestigious art school of all, The Royal Academy Schools (1919 – 1920). He was naturally talented, particularly in his ability to carve a wide variety of stone types, and was awarded numerous prizes throughout his training. One such prize was the Royal Academy Gold Medal. While at the RA he was awarded a Travelling Scholarship which took him to Italy where he visited cities including Rome, Florence, and Sienna. In 1924 Skeaping won the “Prix de Rome” in the category of Sculpture, a highly esteemed arts scholarship. While in Rome, Skeaping met a runner-up of the scholarship, the young sculptor Barbara Hepworth. The two sculptors married in Florence the following year (1925).
After Skeaping and Hepworth's return to London in 1926, their creative activities overlapped and influenced one another’s. They exhibited together from their shared studio in 1927, and then again at recognised galleries associated with modern art; Tooth's Gallery (Bond Street, London) in 1928. Such exhibitions had important impacts on both their careers, with Skeaping soon joining influential exhibiting societies the London Group (1928 to 1934) and the Seven and Five Society (1932). He divorced from Hepworth in 1933 (they had been separated two years earlier).
Skeaping achieved a professional status as a talented designer and illustrator. Throughout his sculpture, paintings, and works on paper, Skeaping was fascinated by the forms and dynamics of animals; a favourite location of his was the zoo. In 1933 he produced a series of illustrations for The Whipsnade Zoo Animal Book and through his friend, Julian Huxley (secretary to the Zoological Society of London), painted a mural inside the society's restaurant. Skeaping received a significant commission from Wedgwood in 1927 where he created a series of ten animals for production in glazed ceramics of various colour. Among the animal figures were antelope, buffalo, deer, monkeys, tiger, and polar Bear. Other illustrations and published works include Animal Drawing (1936), How to Draw Horses (1941), and How to Draw Dogs (1961).
In his teaching capacity Skeaping taught at the Central School of Arts from 1930 to 1939 and at the Royal College of Art from 1948. He was Professor of Sculpture at the RCA between 1953 and 1959. During the Second World War he entered to intelligence corps as an Official War Artist and served briefly as a member of the British Special Forces, the SAS. After the war and during his final decades Skeaping spent long periods in Mexico and France, and received a number of commissions to produce bronze portraits of champion racehorses. He was made an associate of the Royal Academy in 1950 and became a full academician in 1960.
Skeaping remains a marginalised figure in the history of British modernism. Although incredibly talented and an important contributor during the late 1920s and early 1930 (and married to one of the movement's leading personalities), he avoided international-wide debates about aesthetics and modernism. In short, Skeaping's work was too conventional. He eventually became disillusioned by the direction towards abstraction which the sculptors Hepworth and Henry Moore had taken modern British sculpture, and he never returned to it. Today he is probably best known as a painter of racehorses, but his involvement with key modernists, and during the developing stages of their ideas and practice, has caused a reappraisal of Skeaping's work, albeit rather limited.
Skeaping is represented by the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Academy, and the Tate Collection. Holders outside the capital include the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), and public collections in Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester, among others. International collections include those in Australia, USA, and Japan. The majority of his sculptures are held in private collections.
Benjamin Angwin - March 2015