Jon Edgar
Encyclopedia
Jon Edgar is a British artist born in Rustington
, West Sussex
in 1968, the grandson of British cartoonist Brian White
. He direct-carves in wood and stone using methods of improvisation
, and works in clay.
before attending the former Frink School
of Figurative Sculpture for two years from 2000, being awarded The Discerning Eye national bursary for his studies.
Responses - Carvings and Claywork (2008) has a foreword by Sir Roy Strong
and features other terracotta portraits of eminent sitters who all agreed to sit for Edgar including sculptors Alan Thornhill
, Nicolas Moreton
and Ken Ford
, historian Sir Roy Strong
, conservationist Lady Philippa Scott (widow of Sir Peter Scott
), entrepreneur Stuart Wheeler
, industrialist Sir John Harvey-Jones
and songwriter and musician Stephen Duffy
.
The Environment Triptych (2008) features portraits of the independent scientist James Lovelock
(who sat in Devon in 2007), moral philosopher Mary Midgley
(sitting in Newcastle in 2006) and writer Richard Mabey
(sitting in Norfolk in 2007). Entrepreneur and co-founder of Cass Sculpture Foundation Wilfred Cass
sat at Goodwood in 2008.
In 2009 the first sittings for a new series of heads of prominent British environmental 'doers' took place, with Professor Chris Rapley
CBE sitting in Fittleworth
, West Sussex
, Tim Smit
CBE in Fowey
, Cornwall
, Peter Randall-Page
in Devon and Gordon Murray
in Surrey.
In 2010, clay from the parish of Compton, Guildford was used for portraits of potter Mary Wondrausch
and former Watts Gallery
curator Richard Jefferies
.
Timothy Mowl
's publication on the Historic Gardens of Oxfordshire includes the landscape of Asthall Manor
, home to the biennial stone sculpture
event where reference is made to Edgar coaxing his stone into semi-figurative forms of brooding power, as in his 'Wight Man' and 'Arch' '.
Partner of landscape historian Kate Felus
. One son, born 2006.
exist in public collections in South Georgia Museum
, funded by the South Georgia Association, South Atlantic and at the Scott Polar Research Institute
, Cambridge University, UK.
; Spirit in Mass - Journey into Sculpture, which was produced in 2007 with funding from Screen South and UK Film Council, features former students of the Frink School
, including Edgar talking about Thornhill's
influence on his own work.
The creation of the Stephen Duffy
head was coincidentally documented during the filming of the Douglas Arrowsmith
documentary Memory & Desire: 30 Years in the Wilderness with Stephen Duffy & the Lilac Time. The film was released at the London Raindance Film Festival in October 2009.
The terracotta sculpture forms the CD cover image for the 2009 album by the same name.
The 2006 Herefordshire Jigsaw Sculpture outreach project is documented on film.
The Petworth Magazine No. 132, pp. 10–11 2008 - A contemporary search for Petworth Marble
Jon Edgar: A Life in Sculpture, Sussex Life May 2010 pp.108-111
A Decade of Sculpture in the Garden, Harold Martin Botanic Garden University of Leicester (2011) ISBN 978-0-9564739-1-2 p.30
Rustington
Rustington is a seaside resort and civil parish near Littlehampton in West Sussex. Rustington is centrally situated on the West Sussex coast almost midway between the cathedral city of Chichester and Brighton. For local government purposes, it forms part of the Arun district of the administrative...
, West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
in 1968, the grandson of British cartoonist Brian White
Brian White (cartoonist)
Brian White was a British cartoonist, creating 'The Nipper' for the Daily Mail between 1933 and 1947.Both 'Keyhole Kate' and 'Double Trouble' ran in London's Evening Standard....
. He direct-carves in wood and stone using methods of improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
, and works in clay.
Biography
He studied at both Exeter University and University of LondonUniversity of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
before attending the former Frink School
Frink School
The Frink School of Figurative Sculpture was named after Elisabeth Frink , British Sculptor, and was a small intimate academy with a specific discipline of study closer in spirit to a master and apprentice structure than an educational institution...
of Figurative Sculpture for two years from 2000, being awarded The Discerning Eye national bursary for his studies.
Responses - Carvings and Claywork (2008) has a foreword by Sir Roy Strong
Roy Strong
Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London...
and features other terracotta portraits of eminent sitters who all agreed to sit for Edgar including sculptors Alan Thornhill
Alan Thornhill
Alan Thornhill is a British artist and sculptor whose long association with clay developed from pottery into sculpture. His evolved methods of working enabled the dispensing of the sculptural armature to allow improvisation, whilst his portraiture challenges notions of normality through rigorous...
, Nicolas Moreton
Nicolas Moreton
Nicolas Moreton is a British artist born in 1961 in Watford, Hertfordshire. Predominantly a stone carver, two of his sculptures are in permanent public locations in Milton Keynes....
and Ken Ford
Ken Ford
Kenneth Ford is a British sculptor, is a former Prix de Rome winner for Sculpture, in 1955. He previously studied at the Royal College of Art under Frank Dobson....
, historian Sir Roy Strong
Roy Strong
Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London...
, conservationist Lady Philippa Scott (widow of Sir Peter Scott
Peter Scott
Sir Peter Markham Scott, CH, CBE, DSC and Bar, MID, FRS, FZS, was a British ornithologist, conservationist, painter, naval officer and sportsman....
), entrepreneur Stuart Wheeler
Stuart Wheeler
Stuart Wheeler is a British businessman and politician. He made his fortune as the founder of the spread betting firm IG Index in 1974, but is best known for his political activism, being formerly a major donor to the Conservative Party and since 2011, has been treasurer of the United Kingdom...
, industrialist Sir John Harvey-Jones
John Harvey-Jones
Sir John Harvey-Jones MBE was an English businessman. He was the chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries from 1982 to 1987...
and songwriter and musician Stephen Duffy
Stephen Duffy
Stephen Anthony James Duffy is an English singer/songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He was a founding member and vocalist/bassist of Duran Duran. He went on to record as a solo performer under several different names, and is the singer and songwriter for The Lilac Time with his older brother...
.
The Environment Triptych (2008) features portraits of the independent scientist James Lovelock
James Lovelock
James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...
(who sat in Devon in 2007), moral philosopher Mary Midgley
Mary Midgley
Mary Midgley, née Scrutton , is an English moral philosopher. She was a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University and is known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first book, Beast And Man: The Roots of Human Nature , when she was in her fifties...
(sitting in Newcastle in 2006) and writer Richard Mabey
Richard Mabey
Richard Mabey is a naturalist and author.He has been called by The Times 'Britain's greatest living nature writer'. Among his acclaimed publications are Food for Free, The Unofficial Countryside and The Common Ground, as well as his study of the nightingale, Whistling in the Dark...
(sitting in Norfolk in 2007). Entrepreneur and co-founder of Cass Sculpture Foundation Wilfred Cass
Wilfred Cass
Wilfred Cass CBE FRSA co-founded the Cass Sculpture Foundation.-Biography:Wilfred was born in Berlin and comes from the famous Cassirer family. His great uncle, Paul Cassirer, was an important dealer for the impressionists in Europe...
sat at Goodwood in 2008.
In 2009 the first sittings for a new series of heads of prominent British environmental 'doers' took place, with Professor Chris Rapley
Chris Rapley
Prof. Christopher Graham Rapley CBE is a British scientist. He was Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme IGBP from 1994 to 1998, and Director of the British Antarctic Survey from 1998 to 2007. He was appointed Director of the Science Museum in 2007...
CBE sitting in Fittleworth
Fittleworth
Fittleworth is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located seven kilometres west from Pulborough on the A283 road and three miles south east from Petworth. The village has an Anglican church, a primary school and one pub, the Swan...
, West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
, Tim Smit
Tim Smit
Tim Smit KBE is a Dutch-born British businessman, famous for his work on the Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project, both in Cornwall, Britain.-Biography:...
CBE in Fowey
Fowey
Fowey is a small town, civil parish and cargo port at the mouth of the River Fowey in south Cornwall, United Kingdom. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,273.-Early history:...
, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, Peter Randall-Page
Peter Randall-Page
Peter Randall-Page is a British artist. He studied sculpture at Bath Academy of Art from 1973–77.- Biography :Randall-Page has undertaken numerous large scale commissions and has exhibited widely. His work is held in numerous public and private collections throughout the world including Japan,...
in Devon and Gordon Murray
Gordon Murray
Prof. Gordon Murray , is a renowned designer of Formula One race cars and the McLaren F1 road car.-Early life:...
in Surrey.
In 2010, clay from the parish of Compton, Guildford was used for portraits of potter Mary Wondrausch
Mary Wondrausch
Mary Wondrausch, OBE is an English artist, potter, historian and writer. She trained as a potter at Farnham School of Art, latterly West Surrey College of Art and Design....
and former Watts Gallery
Watts Gallery
Watts Gallery is an art gallery in the village of Compton, near Guildford in Surrey. It is dedicated to the work of Victorian era painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts....
curator Richard Jefferies
Richard Jefferies (curator)
Richard Jefferies was curator of the Watts Gallery for two decades from 1985 to 2006. His role led to his becoming an acknowledged expert on the Victorian painter and sculptor G.F. Watts. Jefferies' uncle had been chief assistant to Mrs Watts in the last ten years of her life and Richard was born...
.
Timothy Mowl
Timothy Mowl
Professor Timothy Mowl is an architectural and landscape historian based within the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol.-Career:...
's publication on the Historic Gardens of Oxfordshire includes the landscape of Asthall Manor
Asthall Manor
Asthall Manor is a gabled Jacobean Cotswold manor house in Asthall, Oxfordshire. It was built in about 1620 and altered and enlarged in about 1916The house was the childhood home of the Mitford sisters.-History:...
, home to the biennial stone sculpture
Stone sculpture
Stone sculpture is the result of forming 3-dimensional visually interesting objects from stone.Carving stone into sculpture is an activity older than civilization itself, beginning perhaps with incised images on cave walls. Prehistoric sculptures were usually human forms, such as the Venus of...
event where reference is made to Edgar coaxing his stone into semi-figurative forms of brooding power, as in his 'Wight Man' and 'Arch' '.
Partner of landscape historian Kate Felus
Kate Felus
Kate Felus is a designed-landscape historian. She studied at University of Warwick and University of Bristol.Her specialist subject area is the social history of 18th-century gardens and their buildings....
. One son, born 2006.
Work in public collections
Portraits of Antarctic explorer and broadcaster Duncan CarseDuncan Carse
Duncan Carse was born in 1913 and attended Sherborne School. A British actor and explorer, he died on 2 May 2004, aged 90. He had lived in Fittleworth, West Sussex, for over 40 years. His father was the artist A...
exist in public collections in South Georgia Museum
South Georgia Museum
The South Georgia Museum is situated in Grytviken, the administrative centre of the UK overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands....
, funded by the South Georgia Association, South Atlantic and at the Scott Polar Research Institute
Scott Polar Research Institute
The Scott Polar Research Institute is a centre for research into the polar regions and glaciology worldwide. It is a sub-department of the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge, located on Lensfield Road in the south of Cambridge ....
, Cambridge University, UK.
Film appearances
The documentary film on sculptor Alan ThornhillAlan Thornhill
Alan Thornhill is a British artist and sculptor whose long association with clay developed from pottery into sculpture. His evolved methods of working enabled the dispensing of the sculptural armature to allow improvisation, whilst his portraiture challenges notions of normality through rigorous...
; Spirit in Mass - Journey into Sculpture, which was produced in 2007 with funding from Screen South and UK Film Council, features former students of the Frink School
Frink School
The Frink School of Figurative Sculpture was named after Elisabeth Frink , British Sculptor, and was a small intimate academy with a specific discipline of study closer in spirit to a master and apprentice structure than an educational institution...
, including Edgar talking about Thornhill's
Alan Thornhill
Alan Thornhill is a British artist and sculptor whose long association with clay developed from pottery into sculpture. His evolved methods of working enabled the dispensing of the sculptural armature to allow improvisation, whilst his portraiture challenges notions of normality through rigorous...
influence on his own work.
The creation of the Stephen Duffy
Stephen Duffy
Stephen Anthony James Duffy is an English singer/songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He was a founding member and vocalist/bassist of Duran Duran. He went on to record as a solo performer under several different names, and is the singer and songwriter for The Lilac Time with his older brother...
head was coincidentally documented during the filming of the Douglas Arrowsmith
Douglas Arrowsmith
Douglas Arrowsmith is a Canadian film director and writer. He has produced award-winning current affairs documentaries and video stories for CBC News Network, as well as feature-length films for BBC Four, The Movie Network and HBO Canada....
documentary Memory & Desire: 30 Years in the Wilderness with Stephen Duffy & the Lilac Time. The film was released at the London Raindance Film Festival in October 2009.
The terracotta sculpture forms the CD cover image for the 2009 album by the same name.
The 2006 Herefordshire Jigsaw Sculpture outreach project is documented on film.
Articles
The Jackdaw Magazine Nov/Dec 2009 - Portrait Sculpture: A Neglected Form? p. 10 ISSN 1474 3914The Petworth Magazine No. 132, pp. 10–11 2008 - A contemporary search for Petworth Marble
Jon Edgar: A Life in Sculpture, Sussex Life May 2010 pp.108-111
A Decade of Sculpture in the Garden, Harold Martin Botanic Garden University of Leicester (2011) ISBN 978-0-9564739-1-2 p.30