John Bacon (sculptor)

John Bacon RA (24 November 1740 – 7 August 1799) was a British sculptor who worked in the late 18th century.

John Bacon was born in Southwark on 24 November 1740, the son of Thomas Bacon, a clothworker whose family had formerly held a considerable estate in Somersetshire. At the age of fourteen, John was apprenticed to Mr Crispe's porcelain manufactory at Lambeth, where he was at first employed in painting the small ornamental pieces of china. His great skill at moulding led to his swift promotion to modeller. He devoted the additional income to the support of his parents, then in straitened circumstances. Observing the models sent by different eminent sculptors to be fired at the adjoining pottery kiln determined the direction of his genius: he began imitating them with such proficiency that a small figure of sent by him to the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts won a prize. Subsequently, its highest awards were given to him nine times between 1763 and 1776. During his apprenticeship, he also improved the method of working statues in stoneware, an art which he afterwards carried to perfection.

Bacon first attempted working in marble around 1763, when he resided in George Yard on Oxford Rd. near Soho Square. He exhibited a medallion of George III and a group of Bacchanalians that year and a bas relief of the Good Samaritan the next. During the course of his early efforts in this art, he was led to improve the method of transferring the form of the model to the marble ("getting out the points") by the invention of a more perfect instrument for the purpose. This instrument possessed many advantages: it was more exact, took a correct measurement in every direction, was contained in a small compass, and could be used on either the model or the marble.

By 1769, he was working for Ms Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory and in that year he was awarded the first gold medal for sculpture awarded by the Royal Academy for a bas-relief representing the escape of Aeneas and Anchises from Troy. In 1770, he exhibited a figure of Mars, redone in marble the next year for Mr Pelhalm, which gained him the gold medal from the Society of Arts and his election as an associate of the Royal Academy (ARA). In 1771, Ms Coade appointed him works supervisor at her manufactory: he directed both model-making and design there until his death. In 1774, he was gifted with a new establishment at 17 Newman St. by a Mr Johnson who was a great admirer of his work. He executed a bush of George III for Christ Church, Oxford, and retained that king's favor throughout his life. Jealous competitors criticized him for ignorance of classic style, a charge he refuted with a bust of Jupiter Tonans. In 1795, he completed a statue of Samuel Johnson for St Paul's Cathedral.

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