Gilbert William Bayes (4 April 1872 – 10 July 1953) was an English sculptor.[1] His art works varied in scale from medals to large architectural clocks, monuments and equestrian statues and he was also a designer of some note, creating chess pieces, mirrors and cabinets.[2]
Career
Prehistoric Period
Classic period
National Museum Cardiff, 1914–1915
Bayes was born in London into a family of artists, his father being Alfred Walter Bayes, an established artist at the time. He was one of four children and brother to both the well-known artist and critic Walter Bayes, and to the Arts & Crafts designer Jessie Bayes. Gilbert Bayes studied at the City and Guilds of London Art School and then at the Royal Academy Schools between 1896 and 1899, where he won a gold medal and a travelling scholarship to Paris.[3][2] Bayes' lengthy and illustrious career began as a student under Sir George Frampton and Harry Bates,[4] and so became associated with the British New Sculpture movement and its focus on architectural sculpture. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1889, aged 17.[5] In Paris, Bayes won an honourable mention at the 1900 International Exhibition, then several medals at the Paris Salon and, in 1925, a gold medal and diploma of honour at the Exhibition of Decorative Art.[6] His work was part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.[7]
Bayes is perhaps best remembered for his interest in colour, his association with the Royal Doulton Company, and his work in polychrome ceramics and enamelled bronze. His 1939 major polychrome stonework frieze, Pottery through the Ages at the Doulton Headquarters in London was removed in the 1960s when the building was razed, and the 50 foot long work was re-located to the Victoria and Albert Museum.[5][2][8] He also designed a number of war memorials, with public works throughout the former British Empire, from New South Wales to Bangalore.
The Building of King Solomon's Temple, Central Warwickshire Masonic Temple (demolished), Birmingham, 1927 (frieze said to be in store)
The Queen of Time monumental bronze and enamel group with clock above central Oxford Street entrance to Selfridges department store, London, 1928[6][5]
Drama Through the Ages, polychrome ceramic frieze for the Saville Theatre (now the Odeon Covent Garden cinema), Shaftesbury Avenue, London, 1931
About 200 sculpted figures executed in coloured and glazed Doultonware set on washing line posts and finials in the housing estates of the St Pancras Home Improvement Society (now Origin Housing Group), Somers Town, London, and at York Rise Estate, Camden, 1920s and 1930s.[16] In 1980 the figures were almost all intact and in good repair; since then, large numbers of figures have been destroyed, removed or stolen.
Pottery through the Ages, polychrome ceramic frieze for the London headquarters of the Royal Doulton Company, Lambeth, 1939. Building demolished, but frieze displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. [2][8]
^ abIan Chilvers (2004). The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-860476-9.
^ abcdefUniversity of Glasgow History of Art / HATII (2011). "Gilbert William Bayes HRI, PRBS". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain & Ireland 1851–1951. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
^"SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE". The Mercury. Vol. CXXXVI, no. 20, 222. Tasmania. 1 June 1932. p. 3. Retrieved 14 December 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^Roland Jeffery, Housing Happenings in Somers Town in Housing the Twentieth Century Nation, Twentieth Century Architecture No 9, 2008, ISBN978-0-9556687-0-8