Thomas Banks (sculptor)

Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox artist Thomas Banks Template:Post-nominals (29 December 1735 – 2 February 1805) was an 18th-century English sculptor.

Life

File:Alcyone ceyx.jpg

Alcyone and Ceyx marble bas relief, originally at Parlington Hall, Aberford; removed to Lotherton Hall sometime after 1905.

The son of William Banks, a surveyor who was land steward to the Duke of Beaufort, he was born in London. He was educated at Ross-on-Wye. Banks was taught drawing by his father, and from 1750 to 1756 was apprenticed to a woodcarver, William Barlow, in London. In his spare time he worked at sculpture, spending his evenings in the studio of the Flemish émigré sculptor Peter Scheemakers. During this period he is known to have worked for the architect William Kent. Before 1772, when he obtained a travelling studentship given by the Royal Academy and proceeded to Rome, he had already exhibited several fine works.Template:Sfn

Returning to England in 1779 Banks found that the taste for classical poetry, long the source of his inspiration, no longer existed, and he spent two years in Saint Petersburg, being employed by Catherine the Great, who purchased his Cupid Tormenting a Butterfly. On his return to England he modelled his colossal Achilles Mourning the Loss of Briseis, a work full of force and passion. He was elected, in 1784, an associate of the Royal Academy and in the following year became a full member.Template:Sfn

Banks died in London on 2 February 1805.Template:Sfn He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary on Paddington Green Church. A plaque to his memory was also erected in Westminster Abbey.<ref name="RGunnis">Template:Cite book</ref>

Works

Among other works in St Paul's Cathedral by Banks are the monuments to Captain George Blagden Westcott and Captain Richard Rundle Burges, and in Westminster Abbey to Sir Eyre Coote, General Loten, Sir Clifton Wintringham and William Woollett. His bronze bust of Warren Hastings is in the National Portrait Gallery.<ref name="RGunnis"/>

File:Thomas Banks Shakespeare attended by Painting and Poetry c 1789.jpg

Engraving by Benjamin Smith of Banks's sculpture Shakespeare attended by Painting and Poetry, formerly at the entrance to the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

File:Sculpture of Shakespeare in the garden of New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon.jpg

Shakespeare attended by Poetry and Painting

Banks's best-known work is perhaps the colossal group of Shakespeare Attended by Painting and Poetry,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which since 1871 has been placed in the garden of New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon.<ref>Template:NHLE</ref><ref name="JoDarke">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The high-relief sculpture was completed in 1789 for a recess in the upper façade of John Boydell's new Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall.<ref name="JoDarke"/> Banks was paid 500 guineas for the group which depicts Shakespeare, reclining against a rock, between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting.<ref>Template:Harvnb cites Signature, new series, 1949, No. 8, pp. 3–22.</ref> Beneath it was panelled pedestal inscribed "He was a Man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again".<ref>Template:Harvnb states "Illustrations of the exterior of the gallery are in B.M., Crace Views, portfolio XI, sheet 20, No. 47; Soane Museum, Soane drawings, drawer 18, set 7, No. 14; C. F. Bell, Annals of Thomas Banks, 1938, Plate XIV".</ref> The sculpture remained in Pall Mall until the building was demolished in 1868 or 1869, when it was moved to New Place.Template:Sfn

One of his most bizarre works is the 1801 Anatomical Crucifixion, a dissected body nailed to a cross, in the Hunterian Museum in London.

Selected public works

File:Anthony Addington by Thomas Banks 01.jpg

Dr Anthony Addington by Thomas Banks, 1790, Victoria and Albert Museum

File:EyreCooteMemorial.jpg

Eyre Coote Memorial at Westminster Abbey by Thomas Banks

Public works by Banks include<ref name="RGunnis"/>

• Isaac Watts, Westminster Abbey (1774)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Bishop Thomas Newton, St. Mary-le-Bow (1782)
• Sir Eyre Coote, Westminster Abbey (1783)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Dean Smith, Chester Cathedral (1787)
• John Heaviside the elder, Hatfield, Hertfordshire (1787)
• Bishop Edmund Law, Carlisle Cathedral (1787)
• Robert Markham, St Mary's, Whitechapel, London (1788)
• Giuseppe Baretti, Marylebone Chapel (1789)
• Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, Flitton, Bedfordshire (1790)
• Samuel Northcote, St Andrew's, Plymouth (1791)
• William Woollett, Westminster Abbey (1791)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Shukburgh Ashby, Hungarton, Leicestershire (1792)
• Tomb of Penelope Boothby, Ashbourne, Derby (1791)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Joseph Hurlock FRS, Stoke Newington Parish Church (1793)
• Anna Matthews, Chester Cathedral (1793)
• Joan Gideon Loten, Westminster Abbey (1793)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Sir Clifton Wintringham, Westminster Abbey (1794)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Mrs Halifax, Ewell, Surrey (1795)
• Margaret Petrie, Lewisham Parish Church (1795)
• Stephen Storace, Marylebone Parish Church (1796)
• Colonel Thomas Kyd, memorial in Calcutta Botanical Gardens, India (1796)
• Cornelia Millbank, Croft, Yorkshire (1796)
• John Halliday, Halesowen, Worcestershire (1797)
• John Clarke, Ickenham, Middlesex, (1800)
• Captain Richard Burgess, St Paul's Cathedral (1802)<ref name="Janson">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Captain George Blagden Westcott, St Paul's Cathedral (1805)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Caractacus Pleading Before the Emperior Claudius in Rome, relief panel, 1774-1777, Stowe School<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Fv
• Thetis and her Nymphs Coming to Console Archilles for the Death of Patroclus, relief panel, Victoria and Albert Museum, London<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

References

Works cited

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Attribution

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External links

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