Joan Ophelia Gordon Bell (1915–1975) was an English sculptor, known for her several commissions for the United Kingdom's

Atomic Energy Authority The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ...

. She was born in London on 1 July 1915, the daughter of the painter Winifred Gordon Bell, (''née'' Billinge; full name Winifred Joan Ophelia Gordon Bell) and Frederick Lawrence Bell, and was raised in the

St John's Wood St John's Wood is a district in the City of Westminster, London, lying 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Charing Cross. Traditionally the northern part of the ancient parish and Metropolitan Borough of Marylebone, it extends east to west from ...

area. In 1938, her address was listed as 13 Greville Place, London NW6. She studied at

Regent Street Polytechnic The University of Westminster is a public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first polytechnic to open in London. The Polytechnic formally received a Royal charter in Aug ...

in the 1930s and exhibited at the Royal Academy, the

Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts (RGI) is an independent organisation in Glasgow, founded in 1861, which promotes contemporary art and artists in Scotland. The institute organizes the largest and most prestigious annual art exhibitio ...

and the Royal Scottish Academy, all before the age of 24. She married the landscape artist William Heaton Cooper (1903–1995) in 1940. They lived in Grasmere in the English Lake District, and had two daughters and two sons, one of them being the painter Julian Cooper. Both Bell and her husband were followers of the teachings of the Christian

Moral Re-Armament Moral Re-Armament (MRA) was an international moral and spiritual movement that, in 1938, developed from American minister Frank Buchman's Oxford Group. Buchman headed MRA for 23 years until his death in 1961. In 2001, the movement was renamed I ...

movement. The couple held a joint exhibition at the

Fine Art Society The Fine Art Society is a gallery based in both London and in Edinburgh's New Town (originally Bourne Fine Art, established 1978). The New Bond Street, London gallery closed its doors in August 2018 after being occupied by The Fine Art Society si ...

's London gallery in 1955. Her auction record is £120, set at Anderson & Garland's auction house in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 14 July 2015, for her ''a composition sculpture of a mountaineer''. Bell died in Grasmere in 1975 and is buried in the village cemetery.

Works

Her giant Portland stone figures, 'Thought' and 'Action', are outside the former Atomic Energy Authority offices in Risley, Lancashire. The bronze bust Bell created of mountaineer

Edmund Hillary Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reache ...

(circa 1953) is in the Te Papa museum in Wellington, New Zealand. The plaster cast remains in Grasmere. The Catalyst Science Discovery Centre,

Widnes Widnes ( ) is an industrial town in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England, which at the 2011 census had a population of 61,464. Historically in Lancashire, it is on the northern bank of the River Mersey where the estuary narrows to form th ...

, has a relief carving of an

anhydrite Anhydrite, or anhydrous calcium sulfate, is a mineral with the chemical formula CaSO4. It is in the orthorhombic crystal system, with three directions of perfect cleavage parallel to the three planes of symmetry. It is not isomorphous with the ...

kiln, made from a piece of anhydrite, for the United Sulphuric Acid Corporation.Accession number: 1983.113 ''William and Dorothy in 1800'', depicts

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication '' Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

and his sister Dorothy. St Oswald's Church, Grasmere has her stone sculpture of the Madonna and child. ''The Challenge'' is in the foyer of Stubbins Primary School, in

Ramsbottom Ramsbottom is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, Greater Manchester, England. The population at the 2011 census was 17,872. Historically in Lancashire, it is on the River Irwell in the West Pennine Moors, northwest of Bu ...

. ''The Breakthrough Cross'' (1966), on the roof of the Lady Chapel at the Church of Christ the Healer at Burrswood Hospital in

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. T ...

, is made from aluminium and scrap metal. Other works are displayed at the Heaton Cooper Studio in Grasmere, which William Heaton Cooper had inherited from his father, the landscape artist

Alfred Heaton Cooper Alfred Heaton Cooper (1863–1929) was an English watercolour artist. He is known for his landscapes of the English Lake District and Norway, and for illustrating several travel guidebooks. __NOTOC__ Life and work Cooper was born in Halliwell, ...

. Formerly at

Ambleside Ambleside is a town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Lakes, in Cumbria, in North West England. Historically in Westmorland, it marks the head (and sits on the east side of the northern headwater) of Windermere, England's larges ...

, William moved the gallery to Grasmere in 1938. It is now operated by John Cooper, another of Ophelia and William's sons. An exhibition of her work, "A Vital Spirit", is being held at the studio, from May–October 2015.

Legacy

The Lakes Artists Society, of which Bell was a member from 1940 until her death, grants an annual 'Ophelia Gordon Bell Award' for sculpture "to encourage and reward excellence and innovation".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Ophelia Gordon 1915 births 1975 deaths 20th-century British sculptors 20th-century English women artists Alumni of the University of Westminster English women sculptors People from Grasmere (village) Sculptors from London