Ivan Mitford-Barberton
| Ivan Mitford-Barberton | |
|---|---|
| Born |
1 February 1896 Somerset East, Eastern Cape |
| Died | 9 June 1976 (aged 80) Hout Bay, Cape Town |
| Occupation | Sculptor and writer |
| Notable work | The Mutual Building, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital |
Ivan Mitford-Barberton (1896 - 1976) was a sculptor, writer and authority on heraldry.
Mitford-Barberton was born in Somerset East, in South Africa, in 1896. He was a descendant of several 1820 Settler families. His grandmother was the naturalist, Mary Elizabeth Barber. He did his schooling at St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown. In 1912 his family moved to Kenya, where he encountered African and Arab subjects that later formed an important theme in his work. From 1915 to 1918 he served as a soldier in East Africa. From 1919 to 1922 he studied at the Grahamstown School of Art, and from 1923 at the Royal College of Art in London, under Henry Moore and Derwent Wood. He returned to Kenya in 1927 and set up a studio there. Mitford-Barberton was an active member of the South African Society of Arts and taught art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town.
He designed the monument of Jock of the Bushveld in Barberton, a place that was co-founded by his ancestors. The bronze statue of a leopard in Hout Bay, where he lived, is his work. The sculpture of Peter Pan at the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town was done by Mitford-Barberton
In the 1930s he designed parts of the exterior and the interior decoration of Mutual Building, in Cape Town, the then highest building in Africa 91 metres (299 ft) (excluding the Pyramids of Giza). The exterior is equipped with a 120-metre (390 ft) granite frieze and with nine 4-metre-high (13 ft) figures.
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