Portraits: Sculpture

Isaline ‘Squizzie’ Horner (c.1957) by Gertrude Hermes

Isaline Horner, known to her friends as ‘Squizzie’ joined Newnham College as a student in 1914 and stayed on as Assistant to the Librarian, and then Acting Librarian.  In 1921 Horner travelled with D.J. Stephen (sister of Newnham’s former Librarian and Principal, Katharine) to India and the countries now known as Sri Lanka and Burma. During her tour, Horner became fascinated with the practices of the Buddhist and Hindu religions.

Horner returned to Newnham becoming Librarian in 1923.  She remained interested in Theravada Buddhism and studied Pali texts. In 1936 she moved to Manchester with her companion Elsie Butler, who had been appointed to a Professorship at the University. Horner remained closely involved at Newnham as an Associate and Member of Governing Body, and donated funds towards the extension of the Library in the 1960s.   The University of Ceylon made Horner an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1964, as did Nava Nalanda Mahavihara in 1977. In 1980, Horner received an Order of the British Empire for her services to the Pali Text Society.

Gertrude Hermes (1901–1983) was a highly-acclaimed print-maker; her exquisite wood engravings and prints earned her awards, titles and recognition. Newnham’s art collection includes one of her linocut prints, purchased by students in the mid 1950s.  However, sculpture was Hermes’ first love, through which she explored themes from the natural world, and produced portraits of friends and family, and commissioned subjects.

Hermes was born in Kent to German parents and attended Beckenham School of Art and Brook Green School of Painting and Sculpture, where other students included Eileen Agar, Henry Moore, and Blair Hughes-Stanton whom she married in 1926, but divorced seven years later.   She was influenced by the work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Brancusi and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1934 and at the Venice Biennale in 1939.  Hermes taught wood-engraving and linocutting at the Central School of Art and was elected as a Royal Academician in 1971. She received an Order of the British Empire in 1981.

Hermes’ became noted for her busts of writers, such as those of A.P. Herbert, Kathleen Raine and David Gascoyne, and for her sculpted heads of children.  Hermes’ portrait of Horner is typical of her work of the 1950s and 60s.  The obituary of Horner by M J Waley in Newnham’s 1982 Roll Letter says ‘her portrait in bronze reminds those who knew her of the rugged look of her later years’.  Other examples of Hermes’ portraits in a similarly strong-featured style can be seen in the collections of the Tate and National Portrait Galleries.

‘Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere’, maquette for the sculpture of Millicent Garrett Fawcett (2018) by Gillian Wearing

The statue of Newnham’s co-founder Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847–1929) was created by Turner Prize-winning artist, Gillian Wearing (b.1963).  The full-size statue stands in Parliament Square, following a campaign by the journalist Caroline Criado Perez.  The campaign highlighted that fewer than 3% of statues in the UK are of women, other than those of members of the royal family.

The statue was commissioned to recognise the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918 which gave some women the right to vote.  It portrays Millicent at the age of 50, when she became President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.  The names and images of 55 women and four men who supported women’s suffrage also appear on the statue’s plinth.

In describing the banner that appears in the statue, Wearing explained ‘The words ‘courage calls to courage everywhere’ are shortened from a sentence that Millicent wrote a few years after the death of Emily Davison who was struck by the King’s horse at Epsom Derby. Millicent believed in non-militant action and Emily, who was a Suffragette, believed in the opposite. The Suffragettes were part of a movement born out of the frustration that, even after decades of protests and petitions, women were still not being listened to. They believed that the only way forward was to create civil disobedience. By using this quote from Millicent, I am bringing the two groups together symbolically’.

The banner also references Wearing’s early 1990s work Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say And Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say in which she took a series of photographs of strangers holding up their personal thoughts on pieces of white card.

The maquette at Newnham is one of a small edition with a design based on the original sculpture, and using materials informed by the full-size work. The maquette was acquired in 2018 and is shown in the Millicent Garrett Fawcett room.  Also displayed nearby are the tiles depicting supporters of women’s suffrage (on loan from the GLA), that were created as sample pieces by the artist in the preparations for the sculpture as well as a poster from the Wearing’s Signs That Say series, purchased as part of the 2020Solidarity fundraiser.

Henry Sidgwick (1904) by Gilbert Bayes

Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900), Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy, was co-founder of Newnham College with Millicent Garrett Fawcett.  Alongside his lecturing and literary occupations, Sidgwick took an active part in the business of the University and in many forms of social and philanthropic work. He was also one of the founders and first President of the Society for Psychical Research. Sidgwick married Eleanor Balfour, who as Mrs Sidgwick, became the College’s second Principal.  Sidgwick is commemorated in the names of Sidgwick Hall (where this portrait is displayed), as well as Sidgwick Pond, Sidgwick Avenue and the Sidgwick Site.

The portrait of Henry Sidgwick was created posthumously, being commissioned from 1904 by Mrs Emma Winkworth.  Winkworth probably drafted the inscription for the sculpture, though as one of the era’s most influential philosophers, Sidgwick’s wisdom (as referenced in the text and symbolised by the oil lamp) would have been widely known.  Winkworth served on the College Council from 1880 to 1905; she is recognised in Alice Gardner’s Short History of Newnham as a ‘munificent benefactor’, who gave many books to the library. The Council Minutes of February 1904 record Winkworth’s intention to engage the artist Gilbert Bayes to create the portrait, that ‘if successful’ would then be offered to the College.  She sent photographs of the completed work to Council in 1905 and presented the portrait later that year.

Gilbert Bayes (1872-1953) was one of Britain’s major figurative sculptors and craftsmen. He worked in diverse media including bronze, stone, wood, ceramic and enamel, and at varied scale from medals to monumental and architectural sculpture. Bayes produced works in Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles during his long career.

Bayes had a keen interest in applied arts, and produced many low relief works similar to the Sidgwick portrait.  The inclusion of the bright blue lapis lazuli in the piece is notable, as Bayes became known for his interest in colour.  His polychrome frieze from the front of Doulton House (demolished) is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, where Room 111 charting the creative process of sculpture is named after him.

Bayes was a member of the Art Workers’ Guild. He was elected to the Guild in 1896 and became a Master in 1925.  He would therefore have been acquainted with Selwyn Image, the artist of the Philippa Fawcett portrait.

In October 1931, Bayes’ dramatic horological sculpture The Queen of Time was unveiled at the main entrance of the Selfridges building in Oxford Street, a location that became known as ‘London’s Meeting Place’.

This portrait of Mathilde Blind was originally one of two in the collection at Newnham– the other was sold to the British Museum in the 1990s.  The College also has a portrait drawing of Mathilde Blind by Pre-Raphaelite artist Lucy Madox Brown.

Mathilde Blind was born in 1841, the daughter of Jacob Abraham Cohen and his wife Friederike.  Mathilde’s father died when she was a child and her mother remarried to Karl Blind. They immigrated to London, and the young Mathilde took her stepfather’s surname.  Blind travelled extensively in Switzerland from the age of 18, studying Latin, medieval German and literature. She set up her own household when she was 30.  She continued to travel, spending part of each year in Manchester with her friend Ford Madox Brown and his family. Blind became known as a writer, her first piece appearing in the Westminster Review. Her first book, a narrative poem The Prophecy of St Oran appeared in 1881. The Ascent of Man, an epic poem inspired by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, is considered her masterpiece.

In the mid-1890s Blind spent time in Cambridge, her purpose being a serious one; she was conscious of her failing health and wished to use her estate to support women’s education. After visiting several institutions, she chose Newnham as that which was most aligned to her ideals.  Blind died in London in 1896 and left her residuary estate to the College to provide scholarships to study ‘English or Foreign or Ancient Literature’.

This memorial medallion was produced two years after Blind's death. It is a reduced version of the circular portrait ornamenting her marble monument by Lanteri in St Pancras Cemetery. The monument was commissioned by the chemist and art collector, Ludwig Mond, whose wife Frida was a close friend of Blind. It was unveiled by him in December 1898. Mond was one of Blind's literary executors and a significant patron of Lanteri. He or his wife presumably chose to have a very small edition of bronze reductions of Blind's memorial portrait cast for selected recipients. Three other examples are known: at the National Portrait Gallery, Girton College, Cambridge, and the British Museum (purchased from Newnham).

The medallion is also reproduced in The Ascent of Man by Mathilde Blind, published by Unwin in 1899.

Edouard Lanteri (1848-1917) was born in France, trained in Paris and came to London in in 1872 to work as a studio assistant to Joseph Edgar Boehm.  Although a skilful carver of stone, most of his work, like this portrait, was modelled and cast in bronze. From 1880, he was also an important teacher of sculpture at the South Kensington Art Schools (later the Royal College of Art) where he was Professor of Modelling from 1900 to 1910. Lanteri produced many portrait busts, statuettes and imaginative groups and followed his friend Alphonse Legros in producing cast medallions.