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= John Roberts = John Roberts (18 March 1946 - 1 November 2002) was a British sculptor known for his Cathedral carvings, portraits and abstract carvings.

Life
John Emmanuel Roberts was born March 18th, 1946 in Neath, South Wales. At the age of 8 he was Orphaned, losing both parents within one year. He was Brought up by his Aunt  in Port Talbot, South Wales,where his grand father, an ex-coal miner, was now manager of the steel works.

1964-68 Studied Fine Art at Gloucestershire College of Art, Cheltenham,

In 1969 he was awarded a place at the Royal Academy Schools to study sculpture with Willi Soukop, which he turned down, a decision he regretted.

1976-78 City & Guilds of London Art School, studied Carving in stone and wood.

1978-80 Working as a full time stonecarver at Westminster Abbey.

1981- 2002 Teaching carving part time at the City & Guilds Art School, London, where he remained for the next twenty one years, whilst also pursuing his own  stone sculpture and commissions.

His studio was under a railway arch behind King’s Cross station and later at New Cross Gate.

He lived in a flat in Putney and from 1989, when he began to share his life with his ex student, the sculptor Silvia MacRae Brown, he would also spend time at her cottage by the sea in Sussex.

He died there peacefully at the age of 56 on 1 November 2002, from cancer.

Sculpture
''“I carve stone, wood and marble: figurative or abstract sculpture, commissioned or free work. I usually start by drawing, and this translates to the cutting action of the chisel, shaping contours in space. The work should spring out of a search for truth and communicate its meaning without words."''

John Roberts 2001

Figurative
1988 Twice life size Head of Christ, taken from the Turin shroud, carved in Portland stone. Workman’s chapel, Lincoln Cathedral.

1988 Head of Samuel Becket, plaster for bronze, life size. Exhibited with the Society of Portrait Sculptors.

1994. Elected Associate member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors

1996 Carved Head of Francis Kells in Lincoln stone, 46cm high, exhibited with the Society of Portrait Sculptors.

Abstract
Explorations of form and rhythm in drawing and carved in stone:

Photos, laid out simply

Plates (1 ?) & 2 : Minotaur, 1988, Carrara marble, 58cm high. Exhibited at Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

Plate 3. (Could go with Minotaur instead of plate 1.)

Plates 6a & 6b if there is room

Possibly photo of Moongazing Hare, 1990’s, carved at Art in Action, 53cm high.

Commissions
1989 An angel for Lincoln Cathedral, based on and replacing the 13th century original, in local limestone.

1992-96 Lincoln Cathedral. Carving a series of panels in the local limestone to replace the eroded Romanesque originals on the west front.

1998 Carved three life size limestone figures of Twentieth Century Martyrs, including the young African girl, Manche M, part of a series of ten new works installed on the west front of Westminster Cathedral.

1999 ‘Angel on the Green’, 9ft bronze angel, (which he first carved in plaster). Commissioned by Groveworld for their new development in Islington, as the focal point of their landscaped garden.

1999 Carves a small marble Pieta for Coleorton Church, Leicestershire.

2000 SANDS, National Memorial Garden for still born babies. Carving of baby in Portland limestone, 54cm.

Photos of Westminster Abbey Manche and the Nun are best.

Angel on Green

Pieta

Baby

Exhibitions
1980-96 Exhibited regularly at Art in Action, Oxfordshire.

Group exhibitions in London at Blackheath gallery, Shurini gallery, Sladmore gallery "Sculptors' drawings" with the Royal British Society of Sculptors, Shad Thames gallery, Royal Academy summer show, Society of Portrait Sculptors.

1993 onwards visits and exhibits in Portland, Dorset,  with the Portland Sculpture Trust, including a residency 2001/2002.

Art Parks, Guernsey, exhibits 2000.

2000 Commissioned by the Crowood Press to write his book on stone carving, which remains unfinished at his death in 2002.