Façade Statues and Ornaments of John Milton and William Shakespeare 1905
Frederick E. E. Schenck (1849–1908) and Henry Thomas Hare (1860–1921)
Frederick Emil Eberhard Schenck, Jnr. [commonly known as Frederick Emil E. Schenck, Jnr.] was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 31 August 1849 and was the son of Frederick Emil Ernest Theodore Schenck (1811-1885), a lithographer who in 1840 had emigrated from Offenbach, Hesse to Scotland and by the early 1860s was a naturalised British citizen. After leaving school, Schenk junior worked in his father's lithographic business, however, after two years, it was determined that he should pursue a career as an artist and entered Edinburgh School of Art. In 1872 he was awarded a bronze medal in the National Art Competition. After a brief period working with the pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood and Son, he spent two years studying at the National Art Training School in South Kensington, London.
Schenck began exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh in 1876, and continued to do so irregularly until 1907. He exhibited more frequently at the Royal Academy in London from 1886 to 1901. He also exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Aberdeen Artists' Society; and at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. He participated in the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889 at which he was awarded the Grand Prix; and in the exhibitions of the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society in London in 1889, 1890, 1893, 1899, and 1903.
Whilst studying at the Royal Scottish Academy, he was employed as a freelance designer by the George Jones (Crescent) Pottery in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. He later produced designs for other pottery manufacturers including Wedgwood and Brown, Westhead, Moore.
In 1879 Schenck was appointed Modelling Master at Hanley School of Art in Stoke-on-Trent, a post he held until 1886. In 1888 he moved back to London and for the next two decades worked almost exclusively as an architectural sculptor. He often collaborated with the architect Henry Hare (1860-1921) on projects including the County Buildings in Stafford, Staffordshire (1893–95), for which he produced relief panels for the walls and ceilings of several rooms; Oxford Town Hall (1897), where he designed sculptured panels for the interior; Ingram House, the offices of the United Provident Institution on the Strand, London, for which he created interior panels and sculptures (1906); and the Municipal Buildings and Public Baths in Shoreditch, London (1899), the Municipal Buildings in Crewe, Cheshire (1902–05), and the Central Libraries at Hammersmith, London (1905); and Islington, London (1905) for which he produced exterior sculptures. Schenck also collaborated with the architect Arthur Beresford Pite (1861-1934) for whom he carved the sculptures for a building he designed at 37 Harley Street, London (1898); and the architect James Bow Dunn (1861-1930) for whom he created exterior sculptures for the offices of The Scotsman in Edinburgh (1904).
Schenck died at 90 Bromfelde Road, Clapham, Surrey on 21 February 1908. His address at the time of his death was 222 Broomwood Road, Clapham Junction, Surrey.
Text source: Arts + Architecture Profiles from Art History Research net (AHRnet) https://www.arthistoryresearch.net/
