Francis Derwent Wood [also known as Frank Derwent Wood, and as F. Derwent Wood ] was born in Keswick, Cumberland, England, on 15 October 1871 and in 1880 moved with his family first to to Switzerland and then, in 1885, to Germany. After studying for two years at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Karlsruhe he returned to England in July 1887. He settled in Shoropshire. He then worked as a modeller for the tile manufacturers Maw & Co. of Ironbridge, and for the Coalbrookdale foundry, before, in 1890, enrolling at the National Art Training School [now the Royal College of Art] in South Kensington where he was taught by Édouard Lantéri (1848-1917). In 1891 he was engaged as an assistant by Alphonse Legros (1837-1911) at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. In 1894 he entered the Royal Academy Schools in London. In 1895 he was awarded a Gold Medal and a travelling scholarship which provided funds to enable him to live and study in Paris for a year. During this period, he had a studio at 9 rue Falguière, Paris and exhibited at the Paris Salon. He also met and befriended Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).
In 1900 Wood took a studio in Chelsea, London and began working on numerous public commissions including statues of Sir Titus Salt for Saltaire in Yorkshire (1903), General Wolfe for Westerham in Kent (1910) and Edward VII for Rangoon [now Yangon] in India. (1914). He also produced a number of portrait busts including of Henry James (exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1914).
During World War One, he served as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and distinguished himself by making thin metal masks for soldiers with serious facial war wounds.
Following the war Wood was commissioned to produce war memorials for the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, Ditchingham, Norfolk (1920), Keswick (1922), and the machine-gun corps memorial at Hyde Park, London (1925).
He was Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art from 1918 to 1923.
Wood first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1895 and continued to do so frequently until 1926. He also exhibited at he Goupil Gallery, Grosvenor Gallery, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, New English Art Club, Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, New Gallery, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in London; Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; and at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.
Wood was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1910 and a Royal Academician (RA) in 1920. He was also elected a member of the Art Workers Guild in 1901.
Examples of a garden fountain and garden statuary by Wood are illustrated in 'The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art' 1906 (pp. 258, 260, 262) and 'The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art' 1911 (p. 144).
In 1903 he married Florence Mary Schmidt (1873–1969), an Australian opera singer. His address was given as 1 Bloomfield Place, Pimlico, London in 1895 and 1904; and 27 Glebe Place, Chelsea, London in 1905 and 1926. He died at 14 Henrietta Street, Westminster, London on 19 February 1926.
Text source: Arts + Architecture Profiles from Art History Research net (AHRnet) https://www.arthistoryresearch.net/
