Gordon Herickx (1900–1953) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. Born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, one of seven children of gem setter Emile Herickx and his wife Martha. Herickx won a scholarship in 1914 to study under

William Bloye William James Bloye (8 July 1890 – 6 June 1975) was an English sculptor, active in Birmingham either side of World War II. Life Bloye studied, and later, taught at the Birmingham School of Art (his training was interrupted by World War ...

at the

Birmingham School of Art The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Faculty of Arts, Design a ...

, completing his studies after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. He assisted Bloye on projects such as the 1933 carvings of the church of

St. Francis of Assisi Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christianit ...

Bournville Bournville () is a model village on the southwest side of Birmingham, England, founded by the Quaker Cadbury family for employees at its Cadbury's factory, and designed to be a "garden" (or "model") village where the sale of alcohol was forbidd ...

, and executed his own commissions, such as the carvings around the entrance to the

Barber Institute of Fine Arts The Barber Institute of Fine Arts is an art gallery and concert hall in Birmingham, England. It is situated in purpose-built premises on the campus of the University of Birmingham. The Grade I listed Art Deco building was designed by Robert At ...

, from his studio in

Moseley Moseley is a suburb of south Birmingham, England, south of the city centre. The area is a popular cosmopolitan residential location and leisure destination, with a number of bars and restaurants. The area also has a number of boutiques and ot ...

. He taught at Walsall College of Art from 1945 until his death. He worked mainly in

cast Cast may refer to: Music * Cast (band), an English alternative rock band * Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band * The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis * ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William * ...

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

carved Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and ...

Hoptonwood or

Hornton Hornton is a village and civil parish about northwest of Banbury in Oxfordshire. Churches The oldest parts of the Church of England parish church of Saint John the Baptist are the nave and the arcade of the north aisle, both of which were bu ...

stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...

, working slowly and destroying work he considered imperfect. His early pieces included a series of biomorphic abstractions of

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

cyclamen ''Cyclamen'' ( or ) is a genus of 23 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. ''Cyclamen'' species are native to Europe and the Mediterranean Basin east to the Caucasus and Iran, with one species in Somalia. They grow ...

and

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

bud completed in the 1930s, with later work including a series of figure studies made in the 1950s. Aside from Bloye his sculpture showed the influence of

Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian Sculpture, sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of ...

and

Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...

. Herickx's first solo exhibition was held in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in July 1953, but he died in Birmingham the night after the show's opening. A memorial exhibition was held in October–November that year in

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local h ...

. Herickx's friends in Birmingham included the Birmingham Group of writers and poets and the Birmingham surrealist painters

Conroy Maddox Conroy Maddox (27 December 1912 – 14 January 2005) was an English surrealist painter, collagist, writer and lecturer; and a key figure in the Birmingham Surrealist movement.Morris, Desmond (2018), ''The Lives of the Surrealists''. He wa ...

and

John Melville John William Melville (25 August 1902 – 8 December 1986) was a self-taught British Surrealist painter. He is described by Michel Remy in his book ''Surrealism in Britain'' as one of the "harbingers of surrealism" in Great Britain. He was, a ...

. The poet

Louis MacNeice Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely a ...

, included Herickx as the character "Wimbush" in his autobiographical poem ''Autumn Sequel''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herickx, Gordon 1900 births 1953 deaths English sculptors English male sculptors People from Birmingham, West Midlands 20th-century British sculptors 19th-century British sculptors Alumni of the Birmingham School of Art

See also

References