Frederick William Pomeroy

(b London, 1857; d Cliftonville, Kent, 26 May 1924). English sculptor. The son of an artist-craftsman, he was apprenticed to a firm of architectural sculptors, possibly Farmer & Brindley. From c. 1876 to 1880 he attended clay-modelling evening classes at the South London Technical Art School run by Aim?-Jules Dalou and W. S. Frith (1850-1924). He entered the Royal Academy Schools in December 1880 and in 1885 won the Gold Medal travelling scholarship. After studying with Marius-Jean-Antonin Merci? in Paris and travelling in Italy, he returned to London and explored the relationship between architecture and sculpture in collaboration with the architect J. D. Sedding (Holy Redeemer, Finsbury, 1887; Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, 1890). He also worked for Arthur W. Blomfield (1829-99), Alfred Waterhouse, John Belcher, E. W. Mountford and Henry Wilson. He executed the terracotta figure of Australia for the Victoria Fountain (1887; Glasgow Green; donated by the porcelain manufacturer Sir Henry Doulton), joined the Art Workers' Guild (1887) and began to exhibit with the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society (1888). Pomeroy was an exponent of the New Sculpture and like many of his contemporaries executed ideal figures drawn from mythology and literature showing the twin influences of Renaissance Italy and contemporary France. Typical works include the bronze Dionysius (1890; London, Tate; Cardiff, N. Mus.) and Love the Conqueror (1893; Liverpool, Walker A.G.), the marble Nymph of Loch Awe (1897; London, Tate) and the bronze Perseus (1898; Cardiff, N. Mus.). Numerous strongly modelled monumental works in bronze include Robert Burns (1894; Paisley), Dean Hook (1901; Leeds) and four colossal figures (1905) for Vauxhall Bridge, London. Pomeroy was made ARA in 1907, Master of the Art Workers' Guild in 1908, a council member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1914 and RA in 1917. He was buried at Boscombe cemetery, Hants.

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