Mary Agnes Stainbank (1899–1996) was a South African sculptor.

Early life

Stainbank born in 1899 on the farm Coedmore in Bellair,

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, Colony of Natal. She was educated at

St. Anne's Diocesan College St Anne's Diocesan College is a private girls' boarding school situated in the small town of Hilton ( Umgungundlovu District Municipality) in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands of South Africa. History St Anne's Diocesan College was founded by the R ...

Hilton Hilton or Hylton may refer to: Companies * Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc., a global hospitality company based in the United States that owns several hotel chains and subsidiary companies containing the Hilton name ** Hilton Hotels & Resorts, fla ...

, Colony of Natal. She trained at the Durban School of Art from 1916 to 1921 under John Adams and Alfred Martin, and from 1922-24 at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

, London, under

William Rothenstein Sir William Rothenstein (29 January 1872 – 14 February 1945) was an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman, lecturer, and writer on art. Emerging during the early 1890s, Rothenstein continued to make art right up until his death. Though he c ...

and Frederick John Wilcoxson. She was awarded a Royal College scholarship in 1925 and studied bronze casting at an engineering firm in London.

Working life

On her return to South Africa in 1926 she established a sculpture studio – Ezayo - on the Coedmore estate where, between 1926 and 1940, she produced her finest work. she was influenced by

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 ...

and Jacob Epstein. Though credited with introducing a modern school of sculpture to South Africa during her early career, she was often criticized for her use of avant-garde images. Her choice of African subject matter and her use of sharp, angular forms and distortion of limbs to depict her subjects shocked the largely conservative viewers of the time, who were used to the romantic-realist style of South African artists. As a result, her sculptures did not appeal to the buying public of the day. Many of her freestanding sculptures were shown during the 1930s at exhibitions organized by the Natal Society of Artists. After service in a military drawing office during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she was appointed as head of the sculpture department at the Durban School of Art, where she lectured until 1957. Though her work did not sell, she continued to create sculptures, which were housed in her studio at Coedmore. In the 1980s, a large body of these works went on display at the Old Parliament Buildings in Pietermartzburg. This collection was subsequently transferred to the Voortrekker/Msunduzi Museum in

Pietermaritzburg Pietermaritzburg (; Zulu: umGungundlovu) is the capital and second-largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838 and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its Zulu name umGungundlovu ...

. With the restructuring of that museum, the work was returned to the Stainbank family.

Mary Stainbank Memorial Gallery

The Stainbank collection is generally regarded as the largest body of work by a single artist in South Africa to have remained intact. The collection is housed at the Mary Stainbank Memorial Gallery at Coedmore, the original Stainbank family estate, where the family settled in the 1880s.

Works

During her career, Stainbank produced many portraits of the people who lived on the Coedmore estate as well as architectural commissions that she received. These include decorations on buildings, in Durban, such as the Children’s Hospital at Addington Beach and the government offices in the CBD. Her many public sculptures in Durban include the ''Flower Sellers''; her really fun gargoyle-like figures on the old Receiver of Revenue building; the pediments and ceramics at the old Addington Children's Hospital and the bronze sculpture of John Ross standing on Durban's Victoria Embankment. The

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...

in the church of All Saints Maidstone was done by Stainbank. She designed the Springbok trophy for the South African Polo Association. She produced the architectural decorations for the

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Sou ...

Magistrates' Court.

Notes and references

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External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stainbank, Mary 1899 births 1996 deaths 20th-century sculptors 20th-century South African women artists Alumni of the Royal College of Art Artists from Durban South African sculptors