Lot 31: Ivor Roberts-Jones, R.A. (1913-1996)

Study of Sir Kyffin Williams
inscribed 'Kyffin sees the statue in a fairly complete state' (on the reverse) and with studio stamp (on the backboard)
pastel and pencil
9 1/4 x 8 3/4 in. (23.5 x 22.3 cm.)
with inscription 'I confirm to be the work of Ivor Roberts-Jones/KWBack' (on the reverse). Ken Back was Roberts-Jones' son-in-law and compiled the extensive studio catalogue with Bridget Heriz.

Ipswich, Wolsey Gallery, Christchurch Mansion, December 1999 - January 2000, no. B/H L19.
Essex, Chappel Galleries, July - August 2000, no. 17.

Works from the Studio of Ivor Roberts-Jones, R.A. (1913-1996)

Ivor Roberts-Jones, R.A. (1913-1996)
by
Sir Kyffin Williams, O.B.E., R.A.

I first became friends with Ivor shortly after the war in which he had served with the Welsh Division of the Royal Artillery, having volunteered for the Army straight from the R.A. Schools.

An immediate point of contact was epilepsy. I am epileptic and Ivor's son, who died young, was a chronic sufferer.

Our Welshness, of course, was another bond. Like other distinguished Welsh artists, notably Augustus John, Ivor had a Welsh father and an English mother. His father, a solicitor, who practised in Oswestry, had played football for Wales.

Ivor was small and bird like, in fact a typical Welshman to look at. However, he did not sound Welsh, if anything, he had an Oxford accent. Ivor always had an odd relationship with Wales. He couldn't keep away from the place, yet he didn't like it. He always said that he couldn't make friends there and yet so many of his commissions sprang from his Welshness. These included the Augustus John monument (see lot 33), the portrait busts for the Welsh National Portrait Collection in the National Museum of Wales and his monumental bronze, inspired by ancient Welsh legend, outside Harlech Castle.

Our friendship endured until his death. He was the most honest of men and also one of the most sensitive. He was also opinionated and had an inveterate streak of contrariness. Invariably he would enter my studio and praise the least good work, usually half hidden behind the curtains. So I soon took to putting my best piece behind the curtain and the worst on the easel. I sat for him twice. The second bronze, a bust, is now in the National Museum of Wales (see lots 31 and 32).

Like so many Welsh, spontaneity was his thing: the lightening sketch of an animal, the brilliant characterization of a sitter, achieved in one sitting. This quality is also apparent in his most famous work, the Winston Churchill monument in Parliament Square (lots 46-52). He looked upon it as a great imposing lump. Lesser artists would have fiddled with the detail, but Ivor was a brilliantly intuitive modeller, who in Winston Churchill achieved the ultimate goal of all figurative artists, the reconciliation of abstraction and reality.

When he was at work on the Churchill monument, I visited him in Suffolk to inspect progress.

"You have the coat all wrong" I observed, "I've got my great coat in my van. I'll act as your model".

At the end of the session, Monica, his wife, appeared and said, "that's so much better".

The sculpture is a masterpiece - arguably one of the greatest produced in Britain in the late twentieth century. The Churchill statue is charismatic - ordinary people like it - and of course that's fatal in the contemporary art world. Ivor has been very much overlooked by the art establishment and I am very annoyed by this lack of justice.

Ivor Roberts-Jones was an immaculate, in fact pre-eminent, draughtsman, a brilliant sculptor with an uncanny ability to interpret the characters of his sitters, a superb modeller of animals and an artist in everything he did. His reputation can only be enhanced over the years to come.

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