Walter Seymour Allward
(November 18, 1876 –
April 24, 1955) was a
Canadian
monumental sculptor.
Biography
Early life
Allward
was born in Toronto
, Ontario
, Canada, the son of
John A. Allward of Newfoundland
. Educated in Toronto public schools, his
first job was at the age of 14 as an assistant to his carpenter
father. Allward first served an apprenticeship with the
architectural firm Gibson and Simpson before working at the Don
Valley Brick Works, where he modelled architectural ornaments.
There he showed skill in clay mold making. This early training,
supplemented by modelling classes at the New Technical School
prepared Allward for his lifelong career as monumental
sculpture.
Early work
Allward's
first commission was for the figure of Peace on the
North-West Rebellion Monument (1895) in Queen's
Park
, Toronto. Other early works included a
life-sized figure of
Dr Oronhyatekha
commissioned by the
Independent Order
of Foresters (1899) and the
Old Soldier, commemorating
the
War of 1812 in Portland Square,
Toronto (1903). In 1903 Allward was elected an associate of the
Royal Canadian Academy and in 1918 became a full academician. Now
well established he received commissions to do busts of Lord
Tennyson, Sir Charles Tupper, Sir Wilfred Laurier and others. On
the grounds of Queen’s Park are statues of General John Graves
Simcoe and Sir Oliver Mowat, completed in 1903 and 1905
respectively.
Heroic monuments
Allward true talent lay in his heroic monuments.
These included the
design work for the Boer War Memorial Fountain in Windsor
, Ontario (1906), the
South African War Memorial
in Toronto (1910), The Baldwin-Lafontaine
Monument on Parliament
Hill
in Ottawa
(1914) and
the Bell Memorial commemorating Alexander Graham Bell in Brantford,
Ontario (1917). Allward had also completed designed work on
a memorial to
King
Edward VII but the onset of the
World War I prevented its completion.
Rather the
figures of Truth and Justice were cast in bronze
and can now be found outside the Supreme Court of Canada
in Ottawa. Alward also designed numerous municipal
cenotaphs
around the country, including the Stratford
Memorial (1922), the Peterborough Memorial (1929) and
the Brant War Memorial. (1933).
Vimy Memorial
The most important and famous commission Allward received was for
the monument to commeorate Canadians killed in the First World War,
a project which would occupy him from 1921 till the memorial's
unveiling in 1936. Allward made 150 design sketches before
submitting the design which won the commission from the Canadian
federal government. The Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission
eventually seletected Vimy Ridge as the location for the memorial,
due largely to its elevation above the plain below, as the
preferred site of Allward's design.
In June 1922 Allward set up a studio in
London
, England
and toured
for more almost two years to find a find a stone of the right
colour, texture, and luminosity for the memorial. He
eventually found it in the ruins of
Diocletian's Palace.
Known as Seget
limestone, it was a stone that came from an ancient Roman quarry
located in Croatia
. As a
consequence, the stone had to be first quarried then shipped by
boat to France and then transported to Vimy Ridge by truck and by
rail.
Allward chose a relatively new construction method, a cast concrete
frame to which the limestone was bonded. The memorial base and twin
pylons contain almost 6,000 tonnes of a Seget limestone. The 20
sculptured figures which grace the memorial were actually carved
where they now stand, from the huge blocks of stone. The carvers
used half-size plaster models produced by Allward in his studio and
an instrument called a
pantograph to
reproduce the huge figures to the proper scale. All this work was
carried out inside temporary studios built around each figure,
including those at the top of the pylons.
Legacy
The art of Walter Allward lives on in numerous substantial monument
and designs in Canada and abroad. Many of his personal tools were
bequeathed to his protege
Emanuel Hahn
who in turn gifted some to his protege
Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook.
Today some of those tools are being used by Canadian sculptor
Christian Cardell Corbet as
gifted to him by his mentor Bradford Holbrook.
Notes
- 66–69
References
- Toronto Globe and Mail, April 25, 1955
- Toronto Star, April 25, 1955
External links
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