Simon Verity

Last updated
Simon Verity
Born
Simon Verity

(1945-07-01) 1 July 1945 (age 78)
Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England
Education
Known forSculpture, lettering, inscriptions, grottoes

Simon Verity (born 1945) is a British sculptor, master stonecarver and letter cutter. Much of his work has been garden sculpture and figure sculpture in cathedrals and major churches. [1] He has works in the private collections of King Charles III, Sir Elton John and Lord Rothschild. [2]

Contents

Career

Verity is the son of Terence Verity, an architect and art designer, and his wife Enid, née Hill, artist, designer and colour theorist. [3] Following his education at Marlborough College, he received his training through an informal apprenticeship to his great-uncle, Oliver Hill, at Daneway House, [4] and under the conservationist Professor Robert Baker's teaching at Wells Cathedral. [1]

Verity's early work includes inscriptions and small printed editions of concrete poetry in collaboration with Sylvester Houédard, produced in his studio at Daneway. [5] [6] Having established his own studio at Rodbourne, St Paul Malmesbury Without, he made notable contributions of figure sculpture and fountains to local Cotswold gardens, including Barnsley House, Kiftsgate Court and Batsford Arboretum.

A 1988 memorial by Verity for the writer Sophie Behrens was the catalyst for the creation of Memorials by Artists, an organization dedicated to the creation of unique memorials. [7] [8]

From the mid-1980s, Verity worked with a small team of colleagues, including Diana Reynell, Belinda Eade and his own family, on the restoration of a group of historic grottoes, including those at Marlborough Mound (1985), Painshill Park (1988-9), Goldney House (1984), [9] Hampton Court House (1989) and Walton Hall Bath House (1987-91). [10] [11] He has since created new grottoes at Leeds Castle (1989), [12] and in the United States, England, Greece and Italy.

Verity acquired from the Nicholson family of gin distillers the Hartham Park or Pickwick underground quarry of Bath stone, at Box Hill, near Corsham, originally opened in the 1840s, which he sold in 1989. [13] [14]

Settling in the United States about 1988, Verity worked as director on the carving of the west portal of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York (also known as the Portal of Paradise) from 1988 until 1997. At the start, Verity was assisted by six apprentices. In 1993, Jean-Claude Marchionni, a master stonecarver from France, joined Verity in the project. [15] A procession of 32 matriarchs and patriarchs from the Old and New Testaments were carved from blocks of limestone already in place. [16]

In 2004, Verity was commissioned to design and build a hand-carved map of the United Kingdom to form the paving for the British Memorial Garden in New York's Hanover Square. The Garden commemorates the 67 British victims of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. The map features all the counties of Great Britain, as well as the boroughs of London and British Islands and protectorates. The map is carved from grey flagstone from Caithness and sandstone from Moray, Scotland. [2]

Verity has participated in a programme of artist's residencies, lectures and demonstrations in the USA. In January 2015, he visited Duke University for a 10-day residency during which he recreated the Head of a virtue, a 1245 sculpture from Notre-Dame Cathedral that is now in the collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke. [17]

Writings include memoirs of his apprenticeship with Oliver Hill [18] [19] and The Library of Libraries (2013), a satirical illustrated polemic inspired by the campaign to preserve the stacks in the New York Public Library. [20] [21] [22]

Late work attributed to him includes land art, notably a series of graffiti inscriptions carved on intertidal boulders on the shores of Caithness, Scotland, where he has maintained a vacation home at Stemster.

Works

Other works include:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Gill</span> English sculptor, typeface designer, and printmaker (1882–1940)

Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Gill as "the greatest artist-craftsman of the twentieth century: a letter-cutter and type designer of genius", he is also a figure of considerable controversy following the revelations of his sexual abuse of two of his daughters and of his pet dog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giambologna</span> 16th–17th century Flemish-born sculptor in Italy

Giambologna, also known as Jean de Boulogne (French), Jehan Boulongne (Flemish) and Giovanni da Bologna (Italian), was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small works in bronze and marble in a late Mannerist style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Edgar Boehm</span> British sculptor (1834–1890)

Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, 1st Baronet, was an Austrian-born British medallist and sculptor, best known for the "Jubilee head" of Queen Victoria on coinage, and the statue of the Duke of Wellington at Hyde Park Corner. During his career Boehm maintained a large studio in London and produced a significant volume of public works and private commissions. A speciality of Boehm's was the portrait bust; there are many examples of these in the National Portrait Gallery. He was often commissioned by the Royal Family and members of the aristocracy to make sculptures for their parks and gardens. His works were many, and he exhibited 123 of them at the Royal Academy from 1862 to his death in 1890.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Longmen Grottoes</span> Cave in Peoples Republic of China

The Longmen Grottoes or Longmen Caves are some of the finest examples of Chinese Buddhist art. Housing tens of thousands of statues of Shakyamuni Buddha and his disciples, they are located 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south of present-day Luoyang in Henan province, China. The images, many once painted, were carved as outside rock reliefs and inside artificial caves excavated from the limestone cliffs of the Xiangshan (香山) and Longmenshan, running east and west. The Yi River flows northward between them and the area used to be called Yique. The alternative name of "Dragon's Gate Grottoes" derives from the resemblance of the two hills that check the flow of the Yi River to the typical "Chinese gate towers" that once marked the entrance to Luoyang from the south. There are as many as 100,000 statues within the 2,345 caves, ranging from 1 inch (25 mm) to 57 feet (17 m) in height. The area also contains nearly 2,500 stelae and inscriptions, hence the name "Forest of Ancient Stelae", as well as over sixty Buddhist pagodas. Situated in a scenic natural environment, the caves were dug from a 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) stretch of cliff running along both banks of the river. 30% date from the Northern Wei and 60% from the Tang dynasty, caves from other periods accounting for less than 10% of the total. Starting with the Northern Wei dynasty in 493 AD, patrons and donors included emperors, Wu Zetian, members of the royal family, other rich families, generals, and religious groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolph Alexander Weinman</span> American sculptor and architectural sculptor (1870–1952)

Adolph Alexander Weinman was a German-born American sculptor and architectural sculptor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evelyn Beatrice Longman</span> American sculptor (1874–1954)

Evelyn Beatrice Longman was a sculptor in the U.S. Her allegorical figure works were commissioned as monuments and memorials, adornment for public buildings, and attractions at art expositions in early 20th-century America. She was the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1919.

The Piccirilli brothers were an Italian family of renowned marble carvers and sculptors who carved many of the most significant marble sculptures in the United States, including Daniel Chester French’s colossal Abraham Lincoln (1920) in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

<i>Peace Fountain</i> Sculpture and fountain by Greg Wyatt in Manhattan, New York, U.S.

The Peace Fountain is a 40-foot-high (12 m) sculpture and fountain located next to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan in New York City. It was commissioned in 1985 by Greg Wyatt, sculptor-in-residence at the cathedral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constantine Seferlis</span> American sculptor

Constantine L. Seferlis (1930–2005) is acknowledged as a master sculptor and stone carver whose works exemplified a group of public monumental artists in the United States during the second half of the 20th century. Many of these stone masters were immigrants, primarily from southern Europe, including Italy and Greece, and they trained and worked in the classical milieu. Seferlis himself was born near Sparta, Greece, and, because of his precocious talent, was enrolled at an early age in the National Academy of Fine Arts in Athens. It was at the National Academy that Seferlis developed his artistic voice, his naturalistic style, and his love for the medium of stone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Ingersoll Aitken</span> American sculptor (1878–1949)

Robert Ingersoll Aitken was an American sculptor. Perhaps his most famous work is the West Pediment of the United States Supreme Court Building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walker Hancock</span> American sculptor (1901–1998)

Walker Kirtland Hancock was an American sculptor and teacher. He created notable monumental sculptures, including the Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial (1950–52) at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, and the World War I Soldiers' Memorial (1936–38) in St. Louis, Missouri. He made major additions to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., including Christ in Majesty (1972), the bas relief over the High Altar. Works by him are presently housed at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the United States Capitol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Wyatt</span> American sculptor

Greg Wyatt is an American representational sculptor who works primarily in cast bronze, and is the sculptor-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leo Lentelli</span> American sculptor

Leo Lentelli was an Italian sculptor who immigrated to the United States. During his 52 years in the United States he created works throughout the country, notably in New York and San Francisco. He also taught sculpture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy King (artist)</span> American sculptor

Roy Elwood King was an American born sculptor, painter and civil engineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Todmorden War Memorial</span> War Memorial in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England

Todmorden War Memorial is a war memorial located in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenda Putnam</span> American sculptor teacher and author (1890–1975)

Brenda Putnam was an American sculptor, teacher and author.

<i>Sleeping Ariadne</i>

The Sleeping Ariadne, housed in the Vatican Museums in Vatican City, is a Roman Hadrianic copy of a Hellenistic sculpture of the Pergamene school of the 2nd century BC, and is one of the most renowned sculptures of Antiquity. The reclining figure in a chiton bound under her breasts half lies, half sits, her extended legs crossed at the calves, her head pillowed on her left arm, her right thrown over her head. Other Roman copies of this model exist: one, the "Wilton House Ariadne", is substantially unrestored, while another, the "Medici Ariadne" found in Rome, has been "seriously reworked in modern times", according to Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway. Two surviving statuettes attest to a Roman trade in reductions of this familiar figure. A variant Sleeping Ariadne is in the Prado Museum, Madrid. A later Roman variant found in the Villa Borghese gardens, Rome, is at the Louvre Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dupont Circle Fountain</span> Artwork by Daniel Chester French

The Dupont Circle Fountain, formally known as the Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont Memorial Fountain, is a fountain located in the center of Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. It honors Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, a prominent American naval officer and member of the Du Pont family. The fountain replaced a statue of Du Pont that was installed in 1884. Designed by Henry Bacon and sculpted by Daniel Chester French, the fountain was dedicated in 1921. Prominent guests at the dedication ceremony included First Lady Florence Harding, Secretary of War John W. Weeks and Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelia Van Auken Chapin</span> American sculptor

Cornelia Van Auken Chapin was an American sculptor and animalier born in Waterford, Connecticut. She was known for her stone models of birds and animals, which she largely carved directly from life and without preliminary models or sketches.

Ermelindo Eduardo Ardolino, known as Edward Ardolino was an Italian-born American stone carver and architectural sculptor of the early twentieth century. He was the most prominent member of the Ardolino family of stone carvers. He worked with leading architects and sculptors, including architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and sculptor Lee Lawrie. Ardolino participated in at least nine Goodhue-Lawrie collaborations including the Los Angeles Public Library and the Nebraska State Capitol. His carvings adorn a significant number of important public and private buildings and monuments, including four buildings in the Federal Triangle of Washington, D.C.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Simon Verity". University of Warwick Art. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  2. 1 2 Ross, David (8 November 2004). "How to pave from Caithness to New York City". The Herald. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  3. ↑ See Enid Verity, Colour, with foreward by John Piper, Frewin, 1967
  4. ↑ 'A young craftsman at Daneway House', Matrix, no. 35, Summer 2018, 1-8
  5. ↑ Rock Sand Tide, Daneway/Openings, 1964
  6. ↑ Alan Powers, ‘Simon Verity, Peculiar Printer’, Matrix: A Review for Printers & Bibliophiles, Number 10, winter 1990
  7. ↑ "Memorials by Artists, Suffolk, UK" (PDF). Dan Bellan. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  8. ↑ Hilary Lees, Exploring English Churchyard Memorials, 2002, page 83
  9. ↑ County Life, vol. 180, 1957
  10. ↑ Richard Barber, The Marlborough Mound: Prehistoric Mound, Medieval Castle, 2022, p. 125
  11. ↑ Dr Gerald Hull and Margaret Hull, Conchinilia Journey I; Conchinilia Journey II; and Half-Forgotten on shell houses and grottoes.
  12. ↑ Trucco, Terry (18 August 1988). "A Stone Carver Finds His Niche in Grottoes Old and New". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  13. ↑ FORSTER, A., HOBBS, P.R.N., MONKHOUSE, R.A. and WYATT, R.J., Environmental Geology Study: Parts of West Wiltshire and South-east Avon (Keyworth: British Geology Survey, 1985), p. 133
  14. ↑ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/510143/1/WAVG85008_incomplete.pdf
  15. ↑ "Portal Project Introduction". Photo Arts. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  16. ↑ "The Portal of Paradise". Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York. Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  17. ↑ "Simon Verity returning to Duke". Wired! Lab. Duke University . Retrieved 3 September 2018.
  18. ↑ 'A young craftsman at Daneway House', Matrix, no. 35, Summer 2018, 1-8
  19. ↑ 'Addendum: a patchwork...after 50 years', privately printed, n.d.
  20. ↑ The Library of Libraries, New York: Committee to Save the New York Public Library, 2013
  21. ↑ "Institute of Classical Architecture & Art".
  22. ↑ Verity, Simon (2 February 2024). The Library of Libraries. Committee to Save the New York Public Library. ISBN   978-0-615-98168-0.
  23. ↑ Historic England. "Cathedral Church of SS Peter and Paul, City of Bristol (1271209)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 19 January 2023.
  24. ↑ Orbach, Julian; Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (2021). Wiltshire. The Buildings Of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. p. 516. ISBN   978-0-300-25120-3. OCLC   1201298091.
  25. ↑ "Angel with Lute". Black Dog of Wells. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  26. ↑ Jerry Sampson, Wells Cathedral West Front: Construction, Sculpture and Conservation, 1998, p. 228
  27. ↑ "Rose Border". Kiftsgate Court. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  28. ↑ "The V&A Temple".
  29. ↑ Gill, Brendan (22 January 1990). "Stone Carver". The New Yorker . Retrieved 4 September 2018.
  30. ↑ Gill, Brendan (22 January 1990). "Stone Carver". The New Yorker . Retrieved 4 September 2018.
  31. ↑ "John Harmar (C1555-1613) – Literary Winchester".
  32. ↑ David S. Neal, Warwick Rodwell, Canterbury Cathedral, Trinity Chapel: The Archaeology of the Mosaic Pavement and Setting of the Shrine of St Thomas Becket, 2022, p. 368
  33. ↑ "Carl Laubin HENBURY HALL, CHESHIRE, 2006" (PDF). Retrieved 26 September 2023.
  34. ↑ "Llowes Court, Glasbury, Powys".
  35. ↑ "Elton John's gardens with Rosemary Verey". YouTube . Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  36. ↑ "Temple of the Sun" . Retrieved 26 September 2023.
  37. ↑ Walton, Susana. La Mortella: An Italian Garden Paradise, New Holland Publishers (2002)
  38. ↑ "Woody House - East Hampton, New York". Ryan Gainey. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  39. ↑ "Sculpture at the Garden". Chicago Botanic Garden. Archived from the original on 10 July 2010. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  40. ↑ "Rebuilding the Gardens of the American Academy in Rome". Garden Design. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  41. ↑ "The Cathedral Labyrinth at New Harmony, Indiana". Blakley's. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  42. ↑ "The Gorgeous Mosaic". New York City . Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  43. ↑ 'Redesigning the Met’s Home for Greek and Roman Art', New York Times, Robin Pogrebin, 18 Apr 2007
  44. ↑ "Lindsey Chapel altar screen restored". 6 March 2021. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.