Charles Wheeler (sculptor)

for others with the same name see Charles Wheeler (disambiguation)

File:Philip Louis Vian by Charles Wheeler, 1942.jpg

Admiral Philip Louis Vian by Charles Wheeler, 1942

Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler KCVO CBE PRA (14 March 1892 – 22 August 1974) was a British sculptor, and the first sculptor to hold the Presidency of the Royal Academy (from 1956 through 1966).

Life

Wheeler was born in Codsall, Staffordshire and raised in nearby Wolverhampton. He studied at the Municipal School of Art in Wolverhampton (now Wolverhampton University) under Robert Emerson. In 1912 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art where he studied under Édouard Lantéri. For World War I Wheeler was classified as unfit for active service and instead modeled artificial limbs for war amputees.

He came to specialize in portraits and architectural sculpture. He became a Fellow of the Royal Academy in 1940 and became its President in 1956. In 1968 he wrote his autobiography, High Relief.

During the Second World War he was the only sculptor to have a permanent contract with the War Artists Advisory Committee.

Charles Wheeler's statue of Lady Wulfrun at St Peter's Church, Wolverhampton

Works

Works include:

• 20-foot bronze doors and a major program of sculptures, including the "Lothbury Ladies" and the gilded finial figure of Ariel for the Bank of England, with architect Sir Herbert Baker, 1922–45
• Fountain and memorial plates for Blackmoor Cloisters (War Memorial) by Sir Herbert Baker.
• sculptures for Rhodes House, Oxford, with Baker, 1927
• sculptures for India House, Aldwych, with Baker, 1928–30
• sculptures for South Africa House with Baker, 1934
• the western fountain figures in Trafalgar Square, 1948
• allegorical figures of the Seven Seas at the Tower Hill Memorial
• the statue of Lady Wulfrun outside St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton
• the monumental Earth and Water figures for the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall

References

• Public Sculpture of the City of London, by Philip Ward-Jackson

External links

• Works by Charles Wheeler in the collection the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
• 'Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler PRA, KCVO, CBE', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951

Cultural offices
Preceded by Sir Albert Richardson	President of the Royal Academy 1956–1966	Succeeded by Walter Thomas Monnington