Gilbert Ledward

Gilbert Ledward RA (London 23 January 1888 – 21 June 1960 London), was an English sculptor.

He won the British Prix de Rome for sculpture in 1913, and in World War I served in the Royal Garrison Artillery and later as a war artist. He was professor of sculpture at the Royal College of Art and in 1937 was elected a Royal Academician. He became president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and a trustee of the Royal Academy.

Born in Chelsea in west London, Ledward was the third of the four children of Richard Arthur Ledward (1857–1890), a sculptor, by his marriage to Mary Jane Wood. His grandfather, Richard Perry Ledward, had been a Staffordshire master potter with the firm of Pinder, Bourne & Co. of Burslem. His father died when Ledward was only two. He was educated at St Mark's College, Chelsea until 1901, when his mother took the family to live in Germany. In 1905 Ledward began to train as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art under Édouard Lantéri, and in November 1910 he proceeded to the Royal Academy Schools.

In 1913 Ledward won both the British Prix de Rome scholarship for sculpture and the Royal Academy's travelling award and gold medal. During the summer of 1914, he travelled throughout Italy, producing sketchbooks now held by the Royal Academy of Arts, but his travels were ended by the outbreak of the Great War at the end of August. He was commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery and was later mentioned in despatches. In 1917 he was fighting in Italy, and in April 1918 he was recalled to England, to be seconded to the Ministry of Information as a war artist. He produced reliefs for the Imperial War Museum, generally of soldiers in action.

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