Ivan Mitford-Barberton

Mitford-Barberton was born in Somerset East, in Cape Colony, in 1896. He was a descendant of several 1820 Settler families. His grandmother was the naturalist, Mary Elizabeth Barber. He did his schooling at St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown.{{efn|Ivan Mitford-Barberton is listed as Barber, Ivan Gray in the Register of S. Andrew's College, Grahamstown, from 1855 to 1914 {{harv|Laurie|1914|p=62}} }} In 1912 his family moved to Kenya,{{sfn|Governor of Kenya|1923|p=774}} where he encountered African and Arab subjects that later formed an important theme in his work.{{citation|chapter=Ivan Mitford-Barberton|title=Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951|publisher=University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII|year=2011|chapter-url=http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib4_1273849781|access-date=2014-10-03|archive-date=6 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006072049/http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib4_1273849781|url-status=dead}} From 1915 to 1918 he served as a soldier in East Africa. From 1919 to 1922 he studied at the Grahamstown School of Art,{{citation needed|date=October 2014}} and from 1923 at the Royal College of Art in London, under Henry Moore and Derwent Wood. He returned to Kenya in 1927 and set up a studio there. Mitford-Barberton was an active member of the South African Society of Arts and taught art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town.

File:Bronz Leopard Memorial, Houtbay. 1963. 05.jpg

He designed the monument of Jock of the Bushveld{{Cite web| title = Barberton glitters with more than just gold| last = Naidoo| first = Romaana| work = Media Club South Africa| date = 13 September 2013| access-date = 2014-10-03| url = http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/culture/3474-barberton-glitters-with-more-than-just-gold| archive-date = 6 October 2014| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141006083820/http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/culture/3474-barberton-glitters-with-more-than-just-gold| url-status = dead}} in Barberton, a place that was co-founded by his ancestors. The bronze statue of a leopard in Hout Bay,{{Cite web| title = Hout Bay Pic of the Day 12/08/11| work = Hout Bay Organised| date = 12 August 2011| access-date = 2014-10-03| url = http://www.houtbay.org/2011/08/hout-bay-pic-of-the-day-120811.html}} where he lived, is his work. The sculpture of Peter Pan at the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town was done by Mitford-Barberton{{Cite web |url=http://childrenshospitaltrust.org.za/story-of-the-peter-pan-statue/ |title=Peter Pan statue in Cape Town |access-date=2014-10-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006175114/http://childrenshospitaltrust.org.za/story-of-the-peter-pan-statue/ |archive-date=2014-10-06 |url-status=dead }}

In the 1930s he designed parts of the exterior and the interior decoration of Mutual Building, in Cape Town, the then highest building in Africa {{convert|91|m|ft}} (excluding the Pyramids of Giza). The exterior is equipped with a {{convert|120|m|ft|adj=on}} granite frieze and with nine {{convert|4|m|ft|adj=mid|-high}} figures.

Mitford-Barberton designed the stucco reliefs that were placed in the pediments of the neo-baroque public buildings of Tongaat and Maidstone in Kwa-Zulu Natal. These reliefs were an emulation of the eighteenth-century work in the Cape of the noted sculptor Anton Anreith and his colleague, the architect Louis Thibault. Where Anreith and Thibault modelled Palladian figures drawn from classical mythology, Mitford-Barberton designed groupings of plantation workers, and allusions to the Saunders family, founders of the Tongaat Sugar Company. Mitford-Barberton also undertook freestanding sculptures for public spaces and garden features on the Tongaat estate.{{sfn|Merrington|2006}}

Miford-Barberton created the sculpture of the Settler family at the 1820 Settlers National Monument in Grahamstown.{{sfn|Buckland|Neville|2004|p=83}} File:1820 Settlers National Monument.jpg|Statue of a Settler family at the 1820 Settlers National Monument ]]

From 1947 to 1961, Mitford-Barberton was a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, 1957-1961 a Fellow of the Society and a member of the Theosophical Lodge Cape Town.

Mitford-Barberton was a prominent figure in the field of heraldry.{{cite journal|last=Laing|first= R.A.|title=The Myth of South African Heraldic Writing|journal=Arma|date=Spring 2000}}{{Cite journal | title = Our South African (Afrikaner) heraldic heritage - a mythical creation? | last = Laing | first = Robert A. | journal= Historia |volume =49 |issue=1 | date = May 2004 | access-date = 2015-12-29 | url = http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication_article/hist_v49_n1_a7 | issn= 0018-229X |pages=110–134 }} In 1947, the Cape Provincial Administration commissioned him to prepare a display of municipal coats of arms for the visit of King George VI. Shortly afterwards, the administration asked municipalities to have their arms checked, and if necessary, re-designed, by Mitford-Barberton, to improve heraldic quality.{{citation|last=Dawes|first= M.|title=Ons dorpe en stede spog met vals wapens|work=Die Huisgenoot|date=26 October 1951|language=af}} As a result, he designed dozens of municipal coats of arms, some of them in collaboration with H. Ellis Tomlinson (in England). In 1956, he addressed the Institute of Town Clerks of Southern Africa on the subject.{{citation|last=Mitford-Barberton|first= I|title=Heraldry and the Municipality|work=South African Municipal Magazine|date=July 1956}}

He was a founder member of the Heraldry Society of Southern Africa in 1953. He was a member of the Heraldry Council from 1963 to 1972.

Ivan Mitford-Barberton wrote several books on the history of his family and the 1820 Settlers. He was married twice and had five children, three sons and two daughters.

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book|last= Mitford-Barberton|first=Ivan|title=Ivan Mitford-Barberton, sculptor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=myVsAAAAIAAJ|year=1962|publisher=Bailey Bros. & Swinfen|display-authors=0}}
• {{cite book|last1=Mitford-Barberton|first1=Ivan |last2=White|first2=Violet |title=Some frontier families: biographical sketches of 100 Eastern Province families before 1840|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=reM8AQAAIAAJ|year=1969|publisher=Human and Rousseau|display-authors=0}} with Violet White
• {{cite book|last=Mitford-Barberton|first=Ivan |title=Comdt. Holden Bowker|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=97o5AQAAIAAJ|year=1970|publisher=Human & Rousseau|display-authors=0}}
• {{cite book|last=Mitford-Barberton|first=Ivan |title=Barbers of the Peak: A History of the Barber, Atherstone, and Bowker Families|url=https://archive.org/details/barbersofpeakhis00mitf|year=1934|publisher=University Press|display-authors=0}}

{{refend}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist|30em}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book|last=Laurie|first=K. W. J. |title=Register of S. Andrew's College, Grahamstown, from 1855 to 1914|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a4_yGwAACAAJ|year=1914|publisher=Slater & Co.|location=Grahamstown}}
• {{cite book|author=Governor of Kenya|title=Kenya Gazette|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xCQ9Zy17vwoC&pg=PA774|date=26 September 1923}}
• {{cite book|last=Afọlayan|first=Funso S. |title=Culture and Customs of South Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sJh4ziYPoksC&pg=PA134|year=2004|publisher=Greenwood|isbn=978-0-313-32018-7}}
• {{cite journal|title=Cape Dutch Tongaat: A Case Study in 'Heritage'|first=Peter |last=Merrington|journal=Journal of Southern African Studies|volume=32|issue=4, Heritage in Southern Africa|date=December 2006|pages=683–699|publisher=Taylor & Francis|doi=10.1080/03057070600995426 |jstor=25065145|s2cid=144785763 }}{{subscription}}
• {{cite book|last1=Buckland|first1=Richard |last2=Neville|first2=Thelma |title=A story of Rhodes: Rhodes University 1904 to 2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5KAlAQAAIAAJ|year=2004|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0-7978-2402-7}}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book| last=Hilton-Barber| first=David| title=The Saint, the Surgeon and the Unsung Botanist: A tribute to my remarkable ancestors.| year=2014| publisher=Footprints Press| isbn=978-0-620-61401-6 }}

{{refend}}

• {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304200214/http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/SOUTH-AFRICA-EASTERN-CAPE/2005-06/1117814405|date=March 4, 2016|title= Extracts from an article on the BARBERs of Barberton written by Ivan MITFORD-BARBERTON}}
• [http://www.vgallery.co.za/cvm-baberton.htm Ivan Graham MITFORD-BARBERTON] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006101725/http://www.vgallery.co.za/cvm-baberton.htm |date=6 October 2014 }}

{{Authority control}}

{{Commons category}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitford-Barberton, Ivan}}

Category:1896 births

Category:1976 deaths

Category:20th-century sculptors

Category:Alumni of St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown

Category:Cape Colony people

Ivan

Category:People from Somerset East

Category:South African heraldists

Category:South African people of British descent

Category:South African sculptors

Category:Academic staff of the University of Cape Town