01 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Walker Art Gallery portico sculpture ‘Michaelangelo’
The Walker Art Gallery was completed in 1877 to designs by local architects Cornelius Sherlock and Henry Hill Vale with brewer Sir Andrew Barclay Brewer as its founding benefactor. Extensions and alterations followed over time with major works completed in 2002. The steps through its classical portico are flanked by two sculptures of seated figures. They were carved by the Liverpool sculptor John Warrington Wood 1839>1886 as part of the original building commission
02 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Walker Art Gallery portico sculpture ‘Michelangelo’
Both figures were carved into white marble which time and the Liverpool weather and pollution has been quite vicious. Pieces have disappeared and their eroded surfaces are encrusted and begrimed. When fresh they must have resembled Edinburgh’s white marble monument to the writer Sir Walter Scott carved over thirty years before this pair and shown in the adjacent EDINBURGH FRAGMENTS 3 Gallery. 
03 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Walker Art Gallery portico sculpture ‘Raphael’
These first two images depict Michaelangelo and this one Raphael. A third of Wood’s sculptures is set on the building high above. He spent much of his working life in Italy. I liked the chance juxtaposition of stone heads and paper exhibition posters in this and the previous Image.
04 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | By St George’s Hall – Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Lord Beaconsfield
Benjamin Disraeli was born in 1804, entered Parliament in 1837 and was twice Prime Minister leading Conservative Party governments. He was created lst Lord Beaconsfield by Queen Victoria in 1876. As a parallel career he was a writer of romantic and political novels. This 1883 figure of Disraeli was completed by Charles Bell Birch in 1876. Compare with Thomas Brock’s 1904 bronze of Prime Minister William Gladstone in Image 11.
05 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | By St George’s Hall – Major General William Earle
Born in Liverpool in 1833 William Earle joined the army on Leaving Harrow School in 1851. He fought in the Crimean war and also served in Canada, India and Egypt. Promoted to Major General in 1880 and whilst in Egypt commanded a force sent too late to relieve General Gordon and 6,000 troops at the Siege of Khartoum in January 1885. Earle himself died in a successful battle at Kirbekan shortly afterwards. This bronze figure in symbolic battle pose is by Charles Bell Birch 1832>1893 was installed in 1887.
06 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Drummer Boy – The King’s Liverpool Regiment Memorial
This St John’s Gardens memorial records the King’s Liverpool Regiment’s service in Afghanistan 1878>1880, Burma 1885>1887 and South Africa 1899>1902 with bronzes by William Goscombe John set against grey granite. This detail is from the drummer boy placed behind the tall plinth carrying Britannia and flanked by two solder figures equipped across those dates. William Goscombe John was a Welsh born sculptor 1860>1952 who studied in Cardiff, London and in France with Rodin 1890>1891. Knighted in 1911, many of his works were public commissions.
07 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Liverpool Cenotaph with bronze relief of marching troops
The Liverpool Cenotaph to the dead of the First World was designed by the architect Lionel Budden 1887>1956 with the bronzes by Herbert Tyson Smith 1883>1972: both were born in Liverpool. It’s over thirty feet in length and constructed in Yorkshire stone supporting two large bronze relief panels and smaller details. This image depicts men dressed as from the various services moving in close marching order. It was Grade II listed in 1952 and Grade 1 in 2013, praised for employing “powerful and modern realist portrayals”.
08 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Cenotaph marching figure detail 1
This is a section from the column of marching figures that for me held a strong visual and emotional appeal. I sought to take this and the following image beyond a simpler record of the modelling of the relief towards one more expressive. I was also interested in the way the sculptor had modelled individuality into the features framed by military repetition. Adjusting brightness and contrast in the original photographs led to these variations.
09 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Cenotaph marching figures detail 2
In this second section a slightly closer shot with contrast changes revealed linear markings in the surface finish not immediately obvious from behind the camera. 
10 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Cenotaph relief – Mourning
This is a central detail from the other long façade bronze depicting mourners laying wreaths on the Stone of Remembrance. The full lower inscription reads 'AND THE VICTORY THAT DAY WAS TURNED INTO MOURNING UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE'. The columns on the flank of St Georges Hall stand beyond.
11 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | St John’s Gardens: Gladstone monument perspective
William Ewart Gladstone 1809>1898 was a Liberal Party member of parliament who was four times Prime Minister between 1868 and 1894. Thomas Brock 1847>1922 completed the bronzes in 1904. Gladstone is depicted in contemporary dress holding a parchment roll and standing by a column and book stack atop a pedestal flanked by a pair of female winged figures symbolising Truth and Justice. 
12 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | St John’s Gardens: Gladstone monument detail – ‘Truth’
. Here, Truth is depicted wearing an olive leaf circlet and carrying a substantial book crooked in her arm.
13 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | St John’s Gardens: Gladstone monument detail – ‘Justice’
Justice depicts a more formidable figure clad in body armour and helmet with hands clutching chains and sword. Many people will be aware of Brock’s monument to Queen Victoria set in front of London’s Buckingham Palace but far fewer, including me, would be able to name its designer. It’s said that her grandson George V was so impressed at its 1911 dedication that he took a sword to create Thomas Brock ‘Sir’ on the spot.
14 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Liverpool Anglican Cathedral: The Risen Christ by Elizabeth Frink
A purpose-built Anglican Cathedral for Liverpool was first mooted in the 1880s. In 1901 architects were invited to submit portfolios and proposals for a building in Gothic style, later broadened a little. In 1923 Giles Gilbert Scott, then aged 22, was chosen. His ideas evolved further through his own revisions and by others after his death in 1960. The Cathedral was dedicated in April 1978. 
15 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Elizabeth Frink - The Risen Christ
Elizabeth Frink 1930>1993 is best known for her sculptures concentrating on male figures, male/bird hybrids, helmeted or goggled male heads and animals. Parallel works on paper in various media including etchings were a significant part of her work. For her bronzes she started with a metal armature on which she build up a plaster form to be chiselled, cut back and rebuilt to the final form from which casts were made. ‘The Risen Christ was a final work, placed above the Cathedral’s west door in the week before her death on 18 April 1993. 
16 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | The Risen Christ- head detail
This is an enlargement of a small fragment taken from a more extended composition and shows something of the sculptor’s working methods. The image quality is not best practice but must suffice.
17 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Left side door to the Metropolitan Cathedral
William Mitchell designed a pair of expressionist sculptural relief doors fronting Frederick Gibberd’s 1967 Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. Their square forms slide together to close the building but searches have only found one photograph of them in contact. They are formed from bronze effect fibreglass which simulates the verdigris colours often associated with traditional hot cast bronze, an alloy of copper and tin.
18 LIVERPOOL SCULPTURES | Right side door to the Metropolitan Cathedral
William Mitchell also completed the relief carvings into the stone of the frontis of the Cathedral that carries the four bells. His sculpture of three crosses symbolises Christ’s crucifixion on Calvary flanked by two thieves and echoes the full title of the building as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. An adjacent gallery shows eighteen images of structural details from around the building.
