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Lot Essay
The present work is a scale maquette for the statue of Earl Atlee (1883-1967), Prime Minister between 1945-51.
Peter Cannon-Brookes comments; 'the most important single portrait commission in recent years has been the full-length Clement Atlee commissioned for the House of Commons and set up there in 1979. This life-size bronze figure is, when compared to the Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, much more intimate and lively, and, one hand thrust into his side pocket and the other gesturing, Atlee seems almost to be telling a joke rather than making a solemn Parliamentary point. This carefully calculated informality ... together with the very sympathetic characterisation of the head, makes Atlee one of Ivor Roberts-Jones' conspicuous successes'. (P. Cannon-Brookes, Ivor Roberts-Jones, London, 1983, p. 73).
The statue was unveiled on 12th November 1979 by Baron Shinwell of Easington. The statue was installed near the Oscar Nemon statue of Churchill, but made taller to compensate for the larger comparative mass of Nemon's statue.
Peter Cannon-Brookes comments; 'the most important single portrait commission in recent years has been the full-length Clement Atlee commissioned for the House of Commons and set up there in 1979. This life-size bronze figure is, when compared to the Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, much more intimate and lively, and, one hand thrust into his side pocket and the other gesturing, Atlee seems almost to be telling a joke rather than making a solemn Parliamentary point. This carefully calculated informality ... together with the very sympathetic characterisation of the head, makes Atlee one of Ivor Roberts-Jones' conspicuous successes'. (P. Cannon-Brookes, Ivor Roberts-Jones, London, 1983, p. 73).
The statue was unveiled on 12th November 1979 by Baron Shinwell of Easington. The statue was installed near the Oscar Nemon statue of Churchill, but made taller to compensate for the larger comparative mass of Nemon's statue.