John Gibson. John Gibson was a Welsh Neoclassical sculptor who studied in Rome under Canova.
He excelled chiefly in bas-relief, notably the two life-size works The Hours Leading the Horses of the Sun and Phaethon driving the Chariot of the Sun, but was also proficient in monumental and portrait statuary. He is famous for his statues of Sir Robert Peel, William Huskisson and Queen Victoria.
Gibson was elected a Royal Academician in 1836, and left the contents of his studio to the Royal Academy, where many of his marbles and casts are currently on display. Gibson was born near Conwy, Wales, where his father was a market gardener.
When he was nine years old the family were on the point of emigrating to America, but his mother put a stop to this plan on their arrival at Liverpool, where they settled, and where Gibson was sent to school. He became fascinated by the displays in the windows of the city's print shops.
The painter and printseller John Turmeau lent him some drawings and plaster casts to copy. At the age of fourteen, Gibson was apprenticed to a firm of cabinet-makers. He soon took a violent dislike to this work, however, and eventually managed to have his articles bought out by the monumental masons Samuel and Thomas Franceys. It was while apprenticed to the Franceys brothers that Gibson came to the attention of the historian William Roscoe, for whom he executed a terracotta bas-relie
He excelled chiefly in bas-relief, notably the two life-size works The Hours Leading the Horses of the Sun and Phaethon driving the Chariot of the Sun, but was also proficient in monumental and portrait statuary. He is famous for his statues of Sir Robert Peel, William Huskisson and Queen Victoria.
Gibson was elected a Royal Academician in 1836, and left the contents of his studio to the Royal Academy, where many of his marbles and casts are currently on display. Gibson was born near Conwy, Wales, where his father was a market gardener.
When he was nine years old the family were on the point of emigrating to America, but his mother put a stop to this plan on their arrival at Liverpool, where they settled, and where Gibson was sent to school. He became fascinated by the displays in the windows of the city's print shops.
The painter and printseller John Turmeau lent him some drawings and plaster casts to copy. At the age of fourteen, Gibson was apprenticed to a firm of cabinet-makers. He soon took a violent dislike to this work, however, and eventually managed to have his articles bought out by the monumental masons Samuel and Thomas Franceys. It was while apprenticed to the Franceys brothers that Gibson came to the attention of the historian William Roscoe, for whom he executed a terracotta bas-relie
Wikipedia ...