Grizel Rosemary Graham Niven (28 November 1906 – 28 January 2007) was an English sculptor. She created the bronze sculpture, the ''Bessie'', which has been given to the winner of the annual Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction since its inception in 1996.

Early life

Grizel Niven was born in Belgravia, London, in 1906, the daughter of William Edward Graham Niven and Henriette Julia Degacher. Her younger brother was the actor, writer and soldier David Niven.

Career

Niven, in collaboration with Paul Clinton, was awarded a prize for one the six best designs in an international competition for the memorial sculpture at the

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, a prize eventually won by Nandor Glid (the son of parents murdered in

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

) in 1967. Niven heard Kate Mosse talking on BBC Radio 4's '' Woman's Hour'' about setting up a Women’s Prize for Fiction, and telephoned to offer a cast of a sculpture of hers as a prize. The 3 ft-high original stood in her garden in Jubilee Place, Chelsea, London. The bronze ''Bessie'' figurine itself is 7.5 inches high.

Personal life

Niven was a lesbian. She died on 28 January 2007, aged 100.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niven, Grizel 1906 births 2007 deaths 20th-century British sculptors 20th-century English women artists 20th-century English LGBT people English centenarians English women sculptors English LGBT sculptors English lesbian artists Lesbian sculptors People from Belgravia Sculptors from London Women centenarians