Henry Charles Fehr
{{short description|British artist}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}}
{{Infobox artist
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| name = Henry Charles Fehr
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| birth_date = 4 November 1867
| birth_place = Forest Hill, London
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1940|5|13|1867|11|4}}
| death_place = London, England
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| nationality = British
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| education = City of London School
| alma_mater = Royal Academy Schools
| known_for = Sculpture, public memorials
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Henry Charles Fehr FRBS (4 November 1867 – 13 May 1940) was a British monumental and architectural sculptor active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He produced several notable public sculptures, war memorials and works for civic buildings. These included architectural sculptures for Middlesex Guildhall, for Wakefield County Hall and for Cardiff City Hall. Throughout the 1920s, Fehr created a number of war memorials, often featuring detailed bronze statuary, for British towns and cities. Notable examples of Fehr's war memorials include those at Leeds, Colchester, Keighley and at Burton upon Trent.
Biography
Fehr was born in Forest Hill in south-east London into a Swiss family, who had settled in England.{{cite web |author=University of Glasgow History of Art / HATII |year=2011 |title=Henry Charles Fehr |url=https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1207246300 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221130070038/https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1207246300 |archive-date=30 November 2022 |access-date=10 February 2021 |work=Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain & Ireland 1851–1951}} Fehr attended the City of London School and is thought to have trained as an apprentice in the studio of the sculptor and stonemason Horace Montford, who supported his application to the Royal Academy Schools in 1885.{{cite book|author=Susan Beattie|publisher=Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art / Yale University Press|year=1983|title=The New Sculpture |isbn= 0300033591}} Although Fehr won several prizes at the Academy, he was narrowly beaten to the 1889 gold medal in sculpture and a travelling scholarship by his fellow student Goscombe John.
File:Cenotaph, The Headrow, Leeds - geograph.org.uk - 112953.jpg, sculpted by Fehr]]
When he graduated from the Royal Academy, Fehr worked as an assistant in the studio of Thomas Brock. There, Fehr created a monumental bronze sculpture, The Rescue of Andromeda, which is considered his first significant work and was subsequently purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate Gallery.{{cite web|url= https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/fehr-the-rescue-of-andromeda-n01749|title=The Rescue of Andromeda|author=Heather Birchall|year=2003|website= Tate|access-date=9 February 2021}} Fehr was greatly upset, and protested repeatedly, when the Tate moved the sculpture from an internal gallery to the position outside the building where it remains. The success, and naturalistic style of The Rescue of Andromeda led to Fehr being, briefly, regarded as part of the New Sculpture movement. Although the association didn't last, like the New Sculpture artists, Fehr's did receive several commissions from firms of architects keen to include decorative sculptures into the designs of their new buildings. For the architect Charles Fitzroy Doll Fehr produced four life-size terracotta sculptures of British queens for the Hotel Russell in London's Bloomsbury. For the firm of Lanchester, Stewart & Rickards, he created architectural decorations for the dome of the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster and also the Welsh dragon that sits above Cardiff City Hall.{{cadw |num=13744|desc=Cardiff City Hall|accessdate=9 February 2021}} J.S Gibson & Partners commissioned Fehr for decorative works on several buildings including the West Ham Technical Institute in London, for a school in Scarborough, for Walsall Central Library and, most notably, for the Middlesex Guildhall in Parliament Square.{{NHLE|num=1422993|desc=Walsall Central Library|accessdate=11 February 2021}} For the same company, Fehr made a coloured plaster relief frieze of scenes from the Wars of the Roses for the interior of Wakefield County Hall in 1898.{{NHLE|num=1242349|desc=County Hall (Offices of West Yorkshire County Council)|accessdate=10 January 2021}}{{cite book|chapter-url=https://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-00062514|chapter=Fehr, Henry Charles|title=Benezit Dictionary of Artists|date=31 October 2011|doi=10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00062514|isbn=978-0-19-977378-7|access-date=10 February 2021}}
In October 1919, as World War I was drawing to a close, the Royal Academy in London held an exhibition of war memorial designs.{{NHLE |num=1391704 |desc= Colchester War Memorial (including lamp columns, walls, gates, piers, railings and posts)|accessdate=8 February 2021}} At the exhibition Fehr displayed statuettes of three figures, Peace holding a dove, a winged Victory and Saint George with a sword and shield. Bronze statues of these figures appeared on several of the war memorials that Fehr created throughout the 1920s for British towns and cities. All three figures positioned on, or around, a stone obelisk, featured on the memorials Fehr created at Colchester, at Burton-upon-Trent, and, in different versions, on the Leeds War Memorial.{{cite book|author=Alan Borg|title= War memorials: From Antiquity to the Present| publisher=Leo Cooper|year=1991|author-link=Alan Borg|isbn=085052363X}}{{cite book|author=Derek Boorman|title=At the Going Down of the Sun: British First World War Memorials| publisher=William Sessions Limited|year=1988|isbn=1 85072 041 X}} Several other memorials, including those at Lockerbie and Langholm in Scotland, at Eastbourne and at Grangetown in Cardiff, only featured the figure of Victory, holding a laurel wreath and an inverted sword, on a pedestal or obelisk. The memorial at Keighley has a version of Peace with bronze statues of an infantryman in battle dress and a sailor holding a telescope.{{NHLE |num=1313949 |desc= Keighley War Memorial|accessdate=8 February 2021}}
Fehr first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1887. He exhibited at the La Libre Esthétique in Brussels and was a founding member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors in 1904, and was later elected a Fellow of the Society.{{cite book|author=James Mackay|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1977|title=The Dictionary of Western Sculptors in Bronze |isbn= 0902028553}} Throughout his career, Fehr sculpted a number of portrait busts. These included several of William Morris, versions of which are in the Royal Academy collection, the William Morris Gallery and the Art Workers Guild collection while Fehr's marble busts of John Ruskin and Robert Browning are held by the South London Gallery.
{{cite web|url=https://www.wmgallery.org.uk/collection/browse-the-collection/bust-of-william-morris-s35-c-1900/object-type/sculpture-and-metalwork/page/1|title=Bust of William Morris (c. 1900)|website=William Morris Gallery|access-date=11 February 2021}}
Public works
=1891–1900=
{{Public art header|show_architect=no|show_material=yes|show_dimensions=yes|show_artist=no|show_owner=no|show_wikidata=yes}}
{{Public art row
| image = The Rescue of Andromeda front view, Tate Britain.jpg
| commonscat = The Rescue of Andromeda (sculpture)
| subject = The Rescue of Andromeda
| location = Exterior of Tate Britain, London
| date = 1893
| type = Sculpture group on pedestal
| material = Bronze
| dimensions =
| designation =
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{{Public art row
| image = James Watt Statue.jpg
| commonscat = Statue of James Watt, Leeds
| subject = James Watt
| location = Leeds City Square
| date = 1898
| type = Statue on pedestal
| material = Bronze and granite
| dimensions =
| designation =Grade II
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q26655856
| notes = {{cite book|author=Jo Darke|publisher=Macdonald Illustrated|year=1991|title= The Monument Guide to England and Wales |isbn=0-356-17609-6}}{{NHLE|num=1375034|desc=Statue of James Watt |accessdate=8 February 2021}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Fehr-russell-1.JPG
| commonscat =
| subject = Elizabeth I, Mary II, Queen Anne and Queen Victoria
| location = Hotel Russell, Bloomsbury, London
| date = 1900
| type = 4 statues in niches
| material = Terracotta
| dimensions =
| designation =
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{{Public art footer}}
=1901–1910=
{{Public art header|show_architect=no|show_material=yes|show_dimensions=yes|show_artist=no|show_owner=no|show_wikidata=yes}}
{{Public art row
| image = David Garrick memorial plaque.JPG
| commonscat =
| subject = Memorial to David Garrick
| location = No. 27 Southampton Street, Covent Garden, London
| date = 1901
| type = Relief plaque
| material = Bronze
| dimensions =
| designation =
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}}
{{Public art row
| image = Archibald Forbes memorial, St Paul's Cathedral.jpg
| commonscat =
| subject = Archibald Forbes
| location = Crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, London
| date = 1902
| type = Plaque
| material = Bronze & Brazilian onyx
| dimensions =
| designation =
| show_wikidata= yes
| wikidata =
| notes = {{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/11823 |title=War Memorials Register: A Forbes|access-date= 9 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}{{cite book|author=Jason Edwards, Amy Harris & Greg Sullivan|publisher=Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd |year=2021|title= Monuments of St Paul's Cathedral 1796-1916 |isbn=978-1-78551-360-2}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = John Harrison (3013169329).jpg
| commonscat = Statue of John Harrison, Leeds
| subject = John Harrison
| location = Leeds City Square
| date = 1903
| type = Statue on pedestal with plaque
| material = Bronze and granite
| dimensions =
| designation =Grade II
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q26655861
| notes = {{NHLE|num=1375039|desc=Statue of John Harrison |accessdate=8 February 2021}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Statue of Queen Victoria, Hull.jpg
| commonscat = Statue of Queen Victoria, Kingston upon Hull
| subject = Queen Victoria
| location = Queen Victoria Square, Kingston upon Hull
| date = 1903
| type = Statue and figures on pedestal with surround
| material = Bronze and Portland stone
| dimensions =
| designation = Grade II
| show_wikidata= yes
| wikidata = Q26492135
| notes = {{NHLE|desc=Queen Victoria Statue and Public Toilets| num=1197686| accessdate=8 February 2021}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Dragon - geograph.org.uk - 408023.jpg
| commonscat =
| subject = Welsh Dragon
| location = Pinnacle of entrance hall, City Hall, Cardiff
| date = 1904
| type = Architectural sculpture
| material = Bronze
| dimensions =
| designation = Grade I
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata =
| notes = {{cite web|title=Welsh Dragon by Henry Charles Fehr|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/fehr/14.html|publisher=The Victorian Web|access-date=9 February 2021}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = James Watt Statue - geograph.org.uk - 322300.jpg
| commonscat = James Watt statue, Greenock
| subject = James Watt
| location = Former Watt Memorial School, Greenock
| date = 1908
| type = Statue on pedestal
| material = Bronze and stone
| dimensions =
| designation = Category B
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata =
}}
{{Public art footer}}
=1911–1920=
{{Public art header|show_architect=no|show_material=yes|show_dimensions=yes|show_artist=no|show_owner=no|show_wikidata=yes}}
{{Public art row
| image = John Hampden Statue.jpg
| commonscat = John Hampden statue, Aylesbury
| subject = John Hampden
| location = Market Square, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
| date = 1911
| type = Statue on pedestal
| material = Bronze and stone
| dimensions =
| designation = Grade II
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q26647298
| notes = {{NHLE|desc= Statue of John Hampden| num=1365631| accessdate=8 February 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/66469 |title=War Memorials Register: J Hampden|access-date= 9 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Middlesex Guildhall entrance.jpg
| commonscat = Reliefs on the façade of Middlesex Guildhall
| subject = Historical figures
| location = Façade of Middlesex Guildhall, Parliament Square, London
| date = 1906–13
| type = Reliefs, statues and frieze
| material = Stone
| dimensions =
| designation = Grade II*
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata =
| notes = {{NHLE |num=1226369 |desc=Middlesex Guildhall|access-date=9 February 2021}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Eastbourne War Memorial, Memorial Roundabout, South Street, Eastbourne (NHLE Code 1441521) (October 2010).JPG
| commonscat = Eastbourne War Memorial
| subject = War memorial
| location = Eastbourne, East Sussex
| date = 1920
| type = Statue on pedestal
| material = Bronze and granite
| dimensions =
| designation = Grade II
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q61670643
| notes = {{NHLE |num=1441521 |desc= Eastbourne War Memorial|accessdate=8 February 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/2108 |title=War Memorials Register: Eastbourne|access-date= 8 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}
}}
{{Public art footer}}
=1921–1930=
{{Public art header|show_architect=no|show_material=yes|show_dimensions=yes|show_artist=no|show_owner=no|show_wikidata=yes}}
{{Public art row
| image = War memorial, Grange Gardens, Cardiff.jpg
| commonscat =
| subject = War memorial
| location = Grange Gardens, Grangetown, Cardiff
| date = 1921
| type = Statue on pedestal with panels
| material = Bronze and Portland stone
| dimensions =
| designation = Grade II
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q29496527
| notes = {{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/6684 |title=War Memorials Register: Grangetown|access-date= 9 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}{{cadw |num=19088|desc=War Memorial in Grange Gardens including enclosure railings|accessdate=9 February 2021}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = War memorial in Langholm 2.jpg
| commonscat = Langholm War Memorial
| subject = War memorial
| location = Langholm, Dumfries & Galloway
| date = 1921
| type = Statue on pedestal
| material = Bronze and granite
| dimensions =
| designation =
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q114168682
}}
{{Public art row
| image = War memorial garden - Burton upon Trent - war memorial (26919668285).jpg
| commonscat = Burton on Trent War Memorial
| subject = Burton upon Trent war memorial
| location = Memorial Gardens, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire
| date = 1922
| type = 3 statues on a pedestal
| material = Bronze and Portland stone
| dimensions =
| designation = Grade II*
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q26577152
| notes = {{NHLE |num=1288788 |desc=Burton upon Trent War Memorial|accessdate=8 February 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/1948 |title=War Memorials Register: Burton upon Trent|access-date= 8 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Leeds War Memorial (27th April 2018) 003.jpg
| commonscat = Leeds War Memorial
| subject = Leeds War Memorial
| location = The Headrow, Leeds
| date = 1922
| type = Obelisk with 3 statues
| material = Portland stone and bronze
| dimensions = 7m tall
| designation = Grade II
| show_wikidata= yes
| wikidata = Q26547390
| notes = {{NHLE |num=1255832 |desc=War Memorial|accessdate=8 February 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/2111 |title=War Memorials Register: Leeds|access-date= 8 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Shepherd's Bush Green park sculpture.jpg
| commonscat = Hammersmith War Memorial
| subject = War memorial
| location = Shepherd's Bush Green, London
| date = 1922
| type = Statue on pedestal
| material = Bronze and stone
| dimensions =
| designation = Grade II
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q26487630
| notes = {{NHLE |num=1192961 |desc= War Memorial|accessdate=8 February 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/11916 |title=War Memorials Register: Hammersmith - WW1 and WW2|access-date= 8 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = First World War monument Lockerbie.jpg
| commonscat =
| subject = War memorial
| location = High Street, Lockerbie
| date = 1922
| type = Statue on pedestal
| material = Bronze and stone
| dimensions =
| designation =
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata =
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Colchester War Memorial.JPG
| commonscat = Colchester War Memorial
| subject = War memorial
| location = Colchester, Essex
| date = 1923
| type = 3 statues on pedestal with panels
| material = Bronze and Portland stone
| dimensions = c. 10m tall
| designation = Grade II*
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q26671057
| notes = {{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/2107 |title=War Memorials Register: Colchester|access-date= 8 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = Lisburn War Memorial - geograph.org.uk - 1763850.jpg
| commonscat = War Memorial, Lisburn
| subject = War memorial
| location = Castle Street, Lisburn, County Antrim
| date = 1923
| type = Statue on pedestal with panels
| material = Bronze and marble
| dimensions =
| designation =
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{{Public art row
| image = Graaff-Reinet, Karoo, Eastern Cape, South Africa (19889130524).jpg
| commonscat =
| subject = War memorial
| location = Graaff-Reinet, South Africa
| date = 1923
| type = Statue on pedestal
| material = Bronze and stone
| dimensions =
| designation =
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata =
| notes ={{cite web| url=http://pathfinda.com/af/graaff-reinet/aantreklikhede/war-memorial|title=War Memorial in Graaff-Reinet, Oos-Kaap|website=pathfinda|access-date=11 February 2021}}
}}
{{Public art row
| image = War Memorial - geograph.org.uk - 414753.jpg
| commonscat = Keighley War Memorial
| subject = War memorial
| location = Town Hall Square, Keighley, West Yorkshire
| date = 1924
| type = 3 statues on pedestal
| material = Bronze and stone
| dimensions = 9.5m tall
| designation = Grade II*
| show_wikidata=
| wikidata = Q26600400
| notes = {{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/2106 |title=War Memorials Register: Keighley|access-date= 8 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}
}}
{{Public art footer}}
Other works
- A set of carved relief panels at the former Westwood School, built 1897-1900, in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.{{NHLE |num=1272842 |desc=The Former Westwood School|access-date=3 March 2021}}
- 1903 Boer War memorial, a stone tablet and a figure of Justice, on the facade of the Old Library, Dulwich College, London.{{cite web|url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/47489 |title=War Memorials Register: Dulwich College Memorial Library - Boer War|access-date= 9 February 2021|work= Imperial War Museum}}{{NHLE |num=1385421 |desc=The Old Library, Dulwich College|access-date=9 February 2021}}
- The identity of the sculptor of the war memorial at Coggeshall in Essex is unknown but has been attributed to Fehr due to its similarity to his nearby Colchester memorial.{{NHLE |num=1427514 |desc= Coggeshall War Memorial|accessdate=10 February 2021}}
- Statue of Benjamin Disraeli in the Market Square at Aylesbury.{{cite web|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/benjamin-disraeli-18041881-301570/search/actor:fehr-henry-charles-18671940/page/1/view_as/grid|title=Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)|website=Art UK|access-date=12 February 2021}}
- Marble, seated statue of Edmund Cartwright in Cartwright Hall, Bradford.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{commonscat|Henry Charles Fehr}}
{{Art UK bio}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fehr, Henry Charles}}
Category:19th-century English sculptors
Category:19th-century English male artists
Category:20th-century English sculptors
Category:20th-century English male artists
Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools
Category:Artists from the London Borough of Lewisham
Category:English male sculptors
Category:People educated at the City of London School