Karin Margareta Jonzen, née Löwenadler, (22 December 1914 – 29 January 1998) was a British figure sculptor whose works, in bronze, terracotta and stone, were commissioned by a number of public bodies in Britain and abroad.[1]
Karin Margareta Jonzen | |
|---|---|
| Born | Karin Margareta Löwenadler 22 December 1914 London, England |
| Died | 29 January 1998 (aged 83) |
| Education | |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Spouses |
|
Biography
editKarin Löwenadler was born in London to Swedish parents and attended the Slade School of Art from 1933 to 1936.[2] At the Slade she won prizes in both painting and sculpture and decided to abandon her original ambition to become a cartoonist and concentrate on sculpture.[3][4] Jonzen continued her studies at the Royal Academy Stockholm and at the City and Guilds Art School in Kennington during 1939.[2][5] That same year she won the Prix de Rome, but the beginning of World War II prevented her making use of the travelling scholarship it conferred.[3] During the war she worked as a Civil Defence ambulance driver until she developed rheumatic fever and was given a medical discharge.[6] While recovering Jonzen became convinced that modernism and abstract sculpture was not the way to advance her art and decided to focus on figurative works.[7]
After the war Jonzen's figures and sculptures were bought by some important art collectors, including Robert Sainsbury and Kenneth Clark, although otherwise commercial galleries showed little interest in her work.[1][7] In 1948 she won the Royal Society of British Sculptors' Feodora Gleichen Award for women artists.[3][4] A number of high-profile public commissions followed. The Arts Council commissioned her to produce a sculpture for the newly built Southbank Centre and the World Health Organization commissioned works from her for its centres in New Delhi and Geneva.[3] A standing figure was commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951.[8] Jonzen also participated in the Some Contemporary British Sculpture exhibition organised by the Arts Council in 1956.[9]
Jonzen entered three pieces for the 1968 Sculpture in the City exhibition which was part of that year's City of London Festival.[10] This led to her receiving two commissions from the Corporation of the City of London including her 1972 group Beyond Tomorrow outside the Guildhall.[1] Jonzen was offered the commission on the basis of a small model and subsequently completed the full-size version but was in Sweden when the foundry casting was made. She was disappointed with the casting and had it re-cast, in bronze resin, at her own expense.[10] This version greatly impressed Lord Blackford, a member of the Corporation, to the extant that he paid for a new bronze casting which is the version displayed outside the Guidhall.[10] Jonzen's other commission from the Corporation was for The Gardener, a piece designed to celebrate the work of the Corporation's Trees, Gardens and Open Spaces Committee.[10] The chair of that committee, Frederick Cleary, was also the Treasurer of the Samuel Pepys Club and in that role he commissioned Jonzen to produce a bust of Pepys for Seething Lane Garden.[10]
Jonzen's figurative skills were greatly suited to church sculpture and both Guildford Cathedral and St Mary-le-Bow in London have figures by Jonzen, while the College Chapel at Selwyn College in Cambridge has her 1958 three-figure Ascension group.[3][11] Subjects of her portrait busts include Paul Scofield, Max Von Sydow, Malcolm Muggeridge and Dame Ninette de Valois, as well as Sir Hugh Casson and Sir A. P. Herbert.[3][12] The National Portrait Gallery in London holds her bronze bust of Learie Constantine, while the Tate collection includes her 1947/1948 terracotta Head of a Youth.[13][14] Other works by Jonzen are also held by art galleries in Bradford, Glasgow, Brighton, Southend and in Melbourne, Australia.[15]
Jonzen exhibited on a regular basis at the Royal Academy, with the London Group, the New English Art Club and at the Royal Society of British Artists.[2][15] She lectured, part-time, on art and art appreciation for the extra-mural department of London University from 1965 to 1970, and at the Camden Arts Centre between 1968 and 1972.[4] Solo exhibitions were held at the Fieldbourne Gallery in London in 1974 and at David Messum Fine Art in 1994.[3][1]
Academician, Gilbert Ledward, nominated Jonzen for membership of the Royal Academy of Arts on 21 April 1949, she was re-nominated in March 1957, however failing to attract sufficient voters her proposal lapsed seven years later in 1964 in accordance with the Royal Academy's regulations.[16]
Jonzen was married twice, firstly to Basil Jonzen, a well-regarded artist and art collector in his own right, whom she married in 1944 and with whom she ran a successful art gallery for a time. After they divorced she married a former boyfriend, a poet called Ake Sucksdorff who she had first met in 1938.[6][8]
Selected public artworks
edit| Image | Title / subject | Location and coordinates |
Date | Type | Designation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mother and Child | Sydenham Hill Estate, London | 1961 | Statue | A commission by the London County Council, situated outside a community centre, where a mother and baby clinic was held. In 1970 the work was reported stolen.[17][7] | ||
 More images |
Learie Constantine, Baron Constantine | National Portrait Gallery, London | 1971 | Bronze bust | [18] | |
.jpg) More images |
The Gardener | London Wall, City of London 51°31′02″N 0°05′33″W / 51.5172°N 0.0925°W |
1971–1972 | Bronze statue | [10] | |
.jpg) More images |
Beyond Tomorrow | Guildhall Piazza, City Of London 51°30′58″N 0°05′31″W / 51.5161°N 0.0919°W |
1972 | Bronze sculptural group | [10] | |
|
Pieta | The Church of Sweden, London | 1975 | Bronze resin statue | [8] | |
| Young Girl | Sloane Gardens, London | 1980 | Bronze statue | |||
|
Samuel Pepys | Seething Lane Garden, London | 1983 | Bust on pedestal | [10] | |
|
St. Tarcisius | Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church, Maiden Lane, London | Statue | |||
|
St. Anne and Mary | St. Anne's Church, Lewes | 1990 | Statue | ||
|
Mother and Child | St Mary-le-Bow, City of London | Bronze statue | |||
|
Young Women Contemplating | The Church of Sweden, London | Half-figure |
|
Group exhibitions
edit- Exhibition of Open Air Sculpture 1948;[19]
- Tate Gallery 'The Four Seasons'; Tate Gallery
- 'Contemporary Religious Art'; City of London Festival 1968;
- Fieldborne Galleries 29 May to 19 June 1974 [20]
References
edit- ^ a b c d Bénézit Dictionary of Artists Volume 7 Herring–Koornstra. Editions Grund, Paris. 2006.
- ^ a b c Grant M. Waters (1975). Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900–1950. Eastbourne Fine Art.
- ^ a b c d e f g Alicia Foster (2004). Tate Women Artists. Tate Publishing. ISBN 1-85437-311-0.
- ^ a b c University of Glasgow History of Art / HATII (2011). "Karin Margareta Jonzen (1914–1998)". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain & Ireland 1851–1951. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
- ^ James Mackay (1977). The Dictionary of Western Sculptors in Bronze. Antique Collectors' Club.
- ^ a b Edward Lucie-Smith (2 February 1998). "Obituary: Karin Jonzen". The Independent. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
- ^ a b c Terry Cavanagh (2007). Public Sculpture of Britain: Public Sculpture of South London. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-184631-063-8.
- ^ a b c Alan Windsor (2003). British Sculptors of the Twentieth Century. Routledge. ISBN 1-85928-4566.
- ^ Exhibition Catalogue, Some Contemporary British Sculpture, Arts Council in association with the Aldeburgh Festival, 16–24 June 1956, listing number 18.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Philip Ward-Jackson (2003). Public Sculpture of Britain Volume 7: Public Sculpture of the City of London. Liverpool University Press / Public Monuments & Sculpture Association. ISBN 0-85323-977-0.
- ^ "Selwyn History". Selwyn College. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
- ^ David Buckman (2006). Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 1, A to L. Art Dictionaries Ltd. ISBN 0-953260-95-X.
- ^ "Karin Jonzen (1914–1998), Artist". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
- ^ "Karin Jonzen (1914–1998), Head of a Youth". Tate. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
- ^ a b Frances Spalding (1990). 20th Century Painters and Sculptors. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-106-6.
- ^ RAA/GA/11/2/3-5 Royal Academy of Arts, Nomination of Associates.
- ^ Help Find Our Missing Art, Historic England, retrieved 21 March 2019
- ^ "Learie Constantine". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 27 June 2023.
- ^ Exhibition of Open Air Sculpture Exhibition Catalogue, London County Council, London, 1948
- ^ Fieldborne Galleries Exhibition Catalogue, London, 1974 (archival copy held at Royal Society of Sculptors)
External links
edit
- 21 artworks by or after Karin Jonzen at the Art UK site