T. Mewburn Crook

Thomas Mewburn Crook (4 December 1869 – 18 January 1949) was an English sculptor who primarily produced portraiture and ecclesiastical works, many of which were exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Biography

Crook was born at Tonge Moor, Bolton, Lancashire, son of cotton dealer James Crook and his wife Dinah (née Hamilton).[1] He was educated at the Xavierian Collegiate School in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Bolton Art School, and the Manchester School of Art (where he graduated with an Art Master's Certificate), before attending the Royal College of Art in London.[2][3] After working as an assistant modelling master at the Royal College of Art from 1894 to 1895, he returned to Manchester, becoming modelling master and anatomy lecturer at the Manchester School of Art from 1896 to 1905, when he moved to Chiswick in West London with his widowed mother and sisters and set up a practice.[4][2]

Crook was an honorary Associate of the Royal College of Art from 1902, was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1910 (being Hon. Secretary from 1913 to after World War II), and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1923.[4]

With his wife, Winifred, a mosaicist (née Saunders; she had been Crook's assistant),[5] Crook had five children. He lived at Chiswick until his death in 1949.[6]

Works

Crook's early work included decorative reliefs for Manchester Council Chamber and a life size plaster figure of St Patrick for the Church of the Sacred Heart, Thornton-Cleveleys, Liverpool.[7]

Amongst his notable works are: a 1916 sculpture of the Welsh British Army officer Thomas Picton,[8] who fought in the Napoleonic Wars and was the most senior officer to die at the Battle of Waterloo, a 1939 sculpture of King George VI, and a 1939 sculpture of Pope Pius XII.[2] Collections of his works exist at St Mary's Church, Standishgate, Wigan; St Mark's Church, North Audley Street, London; St Catherine's Church, Rotherhithe; The National Memorial Arboretum; City Hall, Cardiff; New Malden Library. His work is also represented as war memorials in Streetly, Felixstowe, Caterham and Raynes Park.[9]

After a bomb struck the church of Our Lady of Grace, Chiswick, which Crook and his family attended, in 1944, he endeavoured to repair considerable damage done to the Stations of the Cross produced by nineteenth-century Belgian artist Charles Bayaert. Crook's declining health prevented him from completing the restoration, which his widow continued.[6]

In 2019, 'Prayer', the first of Crook's works to be exhibited at the Royal Academy, was given by the family to the parish of Our Lady of Grace, Chiswick, having previously been owned by Crook's daughter, Sister Bernadette Crook, herself an internationally renowned painter of icons, who died in 2018.[6][7]

References
  1. "Thomas Mewburn Crook's Family History". Thomas Mewburn Crook, sculptor 1869–1949. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  2. "Thomas Mewburn Crook ARCA, RBA, FRBS, HRI". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  3. "Early Life in Bolton". Thomas Mewburn Crook, sculptor 1869–1949. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  4. Who's who in Art 1927, ed. Bernard Dolman, Art Trade Press, p. 56
  5. "Thomas Mewburn Crook's life – the Later Years". Thomas Mewburn Crook, sculptor 1869–1949. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  6. Westminster Record, March 2019, Fr Michael Dunne, Parish Priest of Our Lady of Grace, Chiswick, p. 15- 'Prayer: New home for sculpture in Chiswick'
  7. George P. Landow. "Thomas Mewburn Crook, 1869–1949". The Victorian Web - Literature, History and Culture in the age of Victoria. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  8. The Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan, John Newman, Penguin Books, University of Wales Press, 1995, p. 224
  9. "Thomas Mewburn Crook, Sculptor, 1869–1949". Thomas Mewburn Crook, sculptor 1869–1949. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
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