Wheeler, Charles Thomas, 1892–1974

Jellicoe Memorial Fountains 1940

Charles Thomas Wheeler (1892–1974) and Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869–1944) and Morris Singer Art Foundry Ltd (founded 1927)

British sculptor (and occasional painter). He was born in Codsall, Staffordshire, and studied at Wolverhampton School of Art, 1908–12, and the *Royal College of Art, 1912–17. Although he came to be regarded as the ultimate establishment sculptor, as a young artist he did engage with what was then the adventurous practice of *direct carving: Mother and Child (1926, Wolverhampton Art Gallery) is a fine example. Wheeler did many portrait busts, but the major part of his output was devoted to public sculpture: his biggest commissions were for the Bank of England, for which he did various works between 1930 and 1937, including three bronze doors and a series of giant stone figures on the exterior. His style could be rather ponderous, although Dennis Farr justly praises the Jellicoe Fountain, Trafalgar Square (begun in the late 1930s, unveiled 1938), as a ‘delightful monument in a period not well endowed in this respect’.

Text source: A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art (Oxford University Press)

Charles Thomas Wheeler's statue of Thomas Paine
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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Biography on Oxford Index

Art History Research net (AHR net)

Charles Thomas Wheeler [also known as Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler] was born in Codsall, Staffordshire, England on 14 March 1892 and studied at Wolverhampton School of Art from 1908 to 1912 and at the Royal College of Art in London from 1912 to 1917.

Unfit for military service in World War One, he made moulded prostheses for amputees.

From 1914 he exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. His work was also shown at the Chenil Gallery, Leicester Galleries, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh; Aberdeen Artists' Society; and at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.

He was elected an Royal Society of British Sculptors (ARBS) in 1926; an Associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors (ARBSA) in 1929; a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) in 1930;

a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1931; Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1934; Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors (FRBS) in 1935;
a Royal Academician (RA) in 1940; and an honorary member of The Royal Scottish Academy. He was President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors from 1945 to 1949 and President of the Royal Academy from 1956 to 1966.

Two works by him were purchased by the Chantry Bequest - 'The Infant Christ in 1924, and 'Spring' in 1930.

Wheeler was also a Trustee of the Tate Gallery, 1942-49 and in 1946 became a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission. He was knighted for his services to art in 1958.

Wheeler's commissions included a figures and façade for the Bank of England, London (1920s); Madonna and Child carved from Portland stone, executed in 1924 for the Winchester College memorial cloister (1924); Jellicoe Memorial and fountain group in Trafalgar Square, London (1948); "Earth and Water", sculpture for the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall, London (1953); Merchant Marine Memorial for Tower Hill, London (1952); Royal Naval figures on Royal Naval war memorials at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth (1952-54).

He was married to the artist and sculptor Muriel Wheeler (1888-1979). He died at at Woodreed Farmhouse, Five Ashes, near Mayfield, East Sussex, on 22 August 1974.

_{Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)}

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