John Graham Lough (8 January 1798 – 8 April 1876)Blanchland History: "A tale of two brothers: Thomas and John Graham Lough". Accessed 13 January 2013
/ref> was an English sculptor known for his

funerary monument Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. The term encompasses a wide variety of forms, including cenotaphs ("empty tombs"), tomb-like monuments which do not contain human remains, and comm ...

s and a variety of portrait sculpture. He also produced ideal classical male and female figures.

Life

John Graham Lough was born at Black Hedley Port, Greenhead near Consett, County Durham, one of eleven children born to William Lough of Aycliff, County Durham and Barbara Clementson of Dalton, Northumberland. His father was a farmer near Hexham and he may himself have worked as a farmer in his youth. He was later apprenticed to a stonemason, at Shotley Field near

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

. He later found work in Newcastle as an ornamental sculptor and carved the decorations on the building of the city's Literary and Philosophical Society. Lough came to London by sea in 1825 to study the

Elgin Marbles The Elgin Marbles (), also known as the Parthenon Marbles ( el, Γλυπτά του Παρθενώνα, lit. "sculptures of the Parthenon"), are a collection of Classical Greece, Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the supervision of th ...

at the British Museum. He took lodgings in a first floor in Burleigh Street, above a greengrocer's shop, and there commenced to mould his colossal statue of ''

Milo of Croton Milo or Milon of Croton (late 6th century BC) was a famous ancient Greek athlete. He was most likely a historical person, as he is mentioned by many classical authors, among them Aristotle, Pausanias, Cicero, Herodotus, Vitruvius, Epictetus, an ...

'' based on his studies of the Elgin Marbles and the work of Michelangelo. In 1826 he joined the Royal Society Schools with the support of John Thomas Smith and became the protégé of the painter

Benjamin Haydon Benjamin Robert Haydon (; 26 January 178622 June 1846) was a British painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactle ...

. The following year he exhibited the completed statue. (A later 1863 bronze version survives at Blagdon, Northumberland). It so impressed London society that it brought him scores of patrons and established his career. He began exhibiting ideal figures and heads at the Royal Academy from 1826. Between 1834 and 1838, he spent a period in Rome where his portrait style was influenced by

Neo-classicism Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism w ...

. Lough received a provisional commission to carve four granite lions for the base of

Nelson's Column Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, Central London, built to commemorate Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's decisive victory at the Battle of Trafalgar over the combined French and Spanish navies, during whic ...

. However, in 1846, after consultations with the column's designer,

William Railton William Railton (1800–77) was an English architect, best known as the designer of Nelson's Column. He was based in London, with offices at 12 Regent Street for much of his career. Life He was born in Clapham (then in Surrey) on 14 May 1800, ...

, he withdrew from the project, unwilling to work under the constraints imposed by the architect The commission was later given to

Edwin Landseer Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873) was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. However, his best-known works are the lion sculptures at the bas ...

who, with assistance from the sculptor

Carlo Marochetti Baron Pietro Carlo Giovanni Battista Marochetti (14 January 1805 – 29 December 1867) was an Italian-born French sculptor who worked in France, Italy and Britain. He completed many public sculptures, often in a neo-classical style, plus re ...

, carried out the work in bronze, finally completing it in 1867. He was a close friend of the surgeon

Campbell De Morgan Campbell Greig De Morgan (22 November 1811 – 12 April 1876) was a British surgeon who first speculated that cancer arose locally and then spread, first to the lymph nodes and then more widely in the body. His name is used to describe the non c ...

who sat with Lough as he lay dying of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

. A bust of De Morgan by Lough was given to the Middlesex Hospital medical school and is on display there. Lough is buried in Kensal Green cemetery, London. One of his younger brothers, Thomas, was a talented musician, artist, and poet, best known for "The Ramshaw Flood" (1848), but declined into vagrancy and poverty, dying at Lanchester Workhouse only a year after John Graham's death.

Works

Memorial to Thomas Noon Talfourd in Shire Hall Stafford

Lough's public works include a statue of

Lord Collingwood Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood (26 September 1748 – 7 March 1810) was an admiral of the Royal Navy, notable as a partner with Lord Nelson in several of the British victories of the Napoleonic Wars, and frequently as ...

in Tynemouth, a memorial to

Thomas Noon Talfourd Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd SL (26 May 179513 March 1854) was an English judge, Radical politician and author. Life The son of a well-to-do brewer, Talfourd was born in Reading, Berkshire. He received his education at Hendon and Reading School. ...

, in the

Shire Hall, Stafford The Shire Hall is a public building in Stafford, England, completed in 1798 to a design by John Harvey. Formerly a courthouse, it housed an art gallery which closed to the public in July 2017. The court rooms and cells are preserved. The building, ...

, and the bronze George Stephenson memorial of 1862, opposite the

North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers (NEIMME), commonly known as The Mining Institute, is a British Royal Chartered learned society and membership organisation dedicated to advancing science and technology in the N ...

Newcastle upon Tyne. In London, he produced the monuments to

Henry Montgomery Lawrence Brigadier-General Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence KCB (28 June 18064 July 1857) was a British military officer, surveyor, administrator and statesman in British India. He is best known for leading a group of administrators in the Punjab affectiona ...

and to Bishop Middleton in St Paul's Cathedral, and made the Queen Victoria and Prince Albert for the Royal Exchange. In Canterbury Cathedral, he was responsible for the monuments to Bishop Broughton, and to Lt Col

Frederick Mackeson Lieutenant colonel Frederick Mackeson CB (2 September 1807 – 14 September 1853) was an East India Company officer operating in the North West Frontier of British India and one of Henry Lawrence's "Young Men". Life He was born in Hythe, Kent ...

. Lough produced many ideal works on classical, historical and literary themes, including a series of marble statues of Shakespearean subjects for his chief patron Matthew, 4th Baronet Ridley. Although he was a prolific sculptor, he was also a controversial one, as his work divided opinion about its merits. The '' Literary Gazette'' was a fervent supporter, proclaiming his first exhibition as a demonstration of his "extraordinary genius" and a later sculptural group as a work which "nineteen out of twenty people would prefer ... to any other work in the exhibition." ''

The Art Journal ''The Art Journal'' was the most important British 19th-century magazine on art. It was founded in 1839 by Hodgson & Graves, print publishers, 6 Pall Mall, with the title ''Art Union Monthly Journal'' (or ''The Art Union''), the first issue of 7 ...

'' was just as fervently critical, damning his statue of Queen

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

for the Royal Exchange as "an odiously coarse production, in which not one feature of the Queen is recognisable", and of such "gross vulgarity" that it exceeded "the worst production that has ever been publicly exhibited."

Bibliography

* John Lough (Author), Elizabeth Merson (Contributor), ''John Graham Lough, 1798–1876: A Northumbrian Sculptor'' Boydell & Brewer Inc (1987)

References

;Sources
Biography of John Graham Lough
at The Grove Dictionary of Art. Retrieved May 2007

Short Biography at Tiscali Myweb. Retrieved May 2007
Biography of John Graham Lough
The Consett Story Written and Compiled By Consett Lions' Club Volume One. December 1963 . Retrieved May 2007
Birthplace Photo
County Durham Archive. Retrieved May 2007
John Graham Lough: A Transitional Sculptor
T. S. R. Boase, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 23, No. 3/4 (Jul. – Dec. 1960), pp. 277–290. At JSTOR. Retrieved May 2007
North East honours its neglected sculptor
– the Guardian review of Lough exhibition at Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University, December 2011

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lough, John Graham 1789 births 1876 deaths 19th-century English male artists English male sculptors Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery Deaths from pneumonia in England People from Consett