Alfred Horace "Gerry" Gerrard
RBS
RBS may refer to:
Organisations Banking
* The Royal Bank of Scotland, a retail banking subsidiary of NatWest Group
** RBS International, the offshore banking arm of NatWest Group
Education
* Regent's Business School
* Rotterdam Business School
* ...
(7 May 1899 – 13 June 1998) was an English
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
sculptor. He was head of the sculpture department at the
Slade School of Fine Art
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
from 1925 and professor of sculpture there from 1949 to 1968, where he taught a number of well-known sculptors.
Early life
Gerrard was born on 7 May 1899 in
Hartford, Cheshire
Hartford is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It lies at the intersection of the A559 road and the West Coast Main Line (between Liverpool and Crewe ...
where his family had been farming for four centuries. He was the youngest of five children and was directly descended from the 16th century
herbalist
Herbal medicine (also herbalism) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies ...
John Gerard
John Gerard (also John Gerarde, c. 1545–1612) was an English herbalist with a large garden in Holborn, now part of London. His 1,484-page illustrated ''Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes'', first published in 1597, became a popular gard ...
. Gerrard was educated at Northwich Technical School which he left in 1916.
During the First World War, he served in the army with the
Cameron Highlanders, the
Black Watch
The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS) is an infantry battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The regiment was created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881, when the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regim ...
and the
Gordon Highlanders
Gordon may refer to:
People
* Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters
* Gordon (surname), the surname
* Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War
* Clan Gordo ...
and in the
Royal Flying Corps
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colors =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries =
, decorations ...
(RFC) from 1917. In the RFC, Gerrard flew
Farman MF.11
The Maurice Farman MF.11 ''Shorthorn'' is a French aircraft developed before World War I by the Farman Aviation Works. It was used as a reconnaissance and light bomber during the early part of World War I, later being relegated to training duti ...
s and
F.E.2Bs as a night bomber pilot, crashing and injuring his back on one occasion when his
undercarriage fell off.
Career

After being
demobilized
Demobilization or demobilisation (see spelling differences) is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and milita ...
Gerrard studied at the
Manchester School of Art
Manchester School of Art in Manchester, England, was established in 1838 as the Manchester School of Design. It is the second oldest art school in the United Kingdom after the Royal College of Art which was founded the year before. It is now par ...
in 1919 and at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1920 where
Henry Tonks
Henry Tonks, FRCS (9 April 1862 – 8 January 1937) was a British surgeon and later draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a caricaturist. He became an influential art teacher.
He was one of the first British artis ...
was his teacher and contemporaries included
Samuel Rabinovitch. In 1925, Tonks appointed Gerrard head of the school's sculpture department, a position he held until 1948 after which he was Professor of Sculpture until 1968 and then
Emeritus Professor
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
. In the 1920s, Gerrard elected to wear a standard set of clothes –
sports jacket
A sport coat, also called a sport jacket (or sports coat or sports jacket in American English), is a men's smart casual lounge jacket designed to be worn on its own without matching trousers, traditionally for sporting purposes. Styles, fabri ...
, corduroy trousers, a collarless shirt and a yellow
stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
. He bought multiple copies of these items and wore them regularly for decades.

During the Second World War, Gerrard was a
Staff Captain
Staff captain is the English translation of a number of military ranks:
Historical use of the rank
Czechoslovakia
In the Czechoslovak Army, until 1953, Staff Captain ( cs, štábní kapitán, sk, štábny kapitán) was a senior captain rank ...
attached to the
Royal Engineers working on
camouflage
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...
projects. Following a plane crash in which he was badly injured, he almost had an arm amputated, but persuaded his doctors to save it so that he could continue sculpting.
In a long teaching career, Gerrard taught and influenced numerous artists, among them
Kenneth Armitage
William Kenneth Armitage (18 July 1916 – 22 January 2002) was a British sculptor known for his semi-abstract bronzes.
Life
Armitage was born in Leeds on July 18, 1916, the youngest of three children studied at the Leeds College of Art and t ...
,
Karin Jonzen
Karin Margareta Jonzen, née Löwenadler, (22 December 1914 – 29 January 1998) was a British figure sculptor whose works, in bronze, terracotta and stone, were commissioned by a number of public bodies in Britain and abroad.
Biography
Karin L� ...
,
Eduardo Paolozzi
Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (, ; 7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005) was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art.
Early years
Eduardo Paolozzi was born on 7 March ...
and
F. E. McWilliam
Frederick Edward McWilliam (30 April 1909 – 13 May 1992), was a Northern Irish surrealist sculptor. He worked chiefly in stone, wood and bronze.
Biography
McWilliam was born in Banbridge, County Down, Ireland, the son of Dr William McWillia ...
. In the austerity years after the Second World War, Gerrard kept the school supplied with raw materials for sculpting by salvaging stone, wood and metal from bomb sites. Well respected for his expertise as a teacher and his generosity, many of his former students would visit him at his home in Kent where he continued sculpting into his eighties.
Whilst teaching at the Slade, Gerrard received private sculpture commissions, often executed on a large scale in stone, as well as producing murals for ocean liners. He also worked as a book illustrator with his future wife
Katherine Leigh-Pemberton, producing wood cuts for ''Elephants and Ethnologists'' (by
Grafton Elliot Smith
Sir Grafton Elliot Smith (15 August 1871 – 1 January 1937) was an Australian- British anatomist, Egyptologist and a proponent of the hyperdiffusionist view of prehistory. He believed in the idea that cultural innovations occur only once an ...
) and ''Egyptian Mummies'' (by Smith and
Warren Royal Dawson
Warren Royal Dawson OBE FRSE FRSM FZS FSA FLS FRSL (13 October 1888, Ealing – 5 May 1968, Bletchley) was an English librarian, insurance agent, Egyptologist and antiquarian.
Biography
He was born in Ealing
Ealing () is a district in Wes ...
) in 1924 and for the ''Book of Bath'' in 1925. During 1944–45 he worked as a
war artist.
Among his sculptural works are:
*''Memorial Stone for a Hunter'', 1926. Displayed temporarily at the
Tate Gallery
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
before its final installation.
*''North Wind'', 1928–29. One of eight personifications of the
four winds commissioned by
Charles Holden
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...
and
Frank Pick
Frank Pick Hon. RIBA (23 November 1878 – 7 November 1941) was a British transport administrator. After qualifying as a solicitor in 1902, he worked at the North Eastern Railway, before moving to the Underground Electric Railways Compan ...
for the headquarters of the
Underground Electric Railways Company of London
The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited (UERL), known operationally as the Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was the holding company for the three deep-level "tube"A "tube" railway is an und ...
at
55 Broadway
55 Broadway is a Grade I listed building close to St James's Park in London. Upon completion, it was the tallest office block in the city. In 1931 the building earned architect Charles Holden the RIBA London Architecture Medal. In 2020, it was ...
.
*''St Anselm'', 1933, St Anselm's church,
Kennington Cross.
*''Monumental Parcel'', gilded carved wooden panels of horses in a forest for
RMS ''Britannic''.
*''Stages in the Development of Man'', 1955, four wall panels built into the end façade of a building in
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500.
Developed after the Second World War as a n ...
.
*''The Dance'', 1960, a sculpture wall for which he was awarded the
Royal British Society of Sculptors
The Royal Society of Sculptors is a British charity established in 1905 which promotes excellence in the art and practice of sculpture. Its headquarters are a centre for contemporary sculpture on Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, London. It ...
' Silver medal.
An exhibition of his work was staged at the South London Art Gallery in 1978. Collections that contain work by Gerrard include the Tate Gallery, and the
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
. The
Henry Moore Institute archive contains works by Gerrard and his papers.
Family
Gerrard married three times:
#1933,
Katherine Leigh-Pemberton (died 1970)
#1972, Nancy Sinclair (died 1995)
#1995, Karen Sinclair
He had no children.
Notes and references
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
External links
*
Hemel Online – ''Stages in the Development of Man''Imperial War Museum''Wing Commander James E ('Johnnie') Johnson''''Wing Commander John C Button''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerrard, Alfred
1899 births
1998 deaths
People from Cheshire
Academics of the Slade School of Fine Art
English sculptors
English male sculptors
Modern sculptors
British war artists
British Army personnel of World War I
British Army personnel of World War II
Royal Air Force personnel of World War I
British World War I pilots
20th-century British sculptors