Sir Richard Westmacott, sculptor

About this book

For over thirty years Sir Richard Westmacott was the leading official sculptor of his generation. Yet despite his pivotal role in the British art world he has never been the subject of extensive examination. This book traces Westmacott's rise to fame and looks at all aspects of his distinguished career. Westmacott won many of the most prestigious commissions of the day, including monuments for Lord Nelson, George III, Charles James Fox and William Pitt, and sculpture for such discriminating collectors as the third Earl of Egremont and the sixth Duke of Bedford. Westmacott's works display many affinities with neoclassicism, yet they also reveal a rich diversity which is characteristic of nineteenth-century sculpture.