Completed Scotland: Artists and Subjects, Sculpture 28 comments Who sculpted this small portrait of Manny Shinwell?
© the copyright holder. Photo credit: Jewish Museum London
This sculpture of Scottish Labour politician Manny Shinwell is inscribed on the back, under the rim of the collar (see attached detail). Could it be ‘F. Stirling’?
Although it is listed as bronze, its appearance may suggest a different metal.
A clay portrait head by Alan Thornhill.
https://bit.ly/2MX2mOX
A photograph of the sitter in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
https://bit.ly/3cX4JMs
Completed, Outcome
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Further comments from Katharine Eustace, Group Leader for Sculpture:
The question posed at the outset of this discussion was one of authorship. It seems that contributors to the discussion are happy to accept that the poorly made inscription along the rim of the back profile reads F. STIRLING. The name alone however tells us nothing, and while this indicates that the maker does not have an exhibition track record (the basis for entry in dictionaries and gazetteers), it may further suggest that the piece was an exercise, possibly the work of a student or an amateur.
In closing this discussion there are two further points to be made:
• The medium is likely to be aluminium with a patination resembling bronze. Aluminium was much used in the immediate post-war years as a casting agent, cheaper than bronze and before the development of fibreglass.
• Questions were raised as to the attributed likeness to Emanuel Shinwell (1884-1986), the veteran Labour Parliamentarian and Father of the House.
The discussion pointed to an otherwise unknown maker, in an art school medium, with a likeness possibly dependent only on a full-frontal, possibly newsprint photograph. Given that the bust was accessioned only three years after the sitter’s death, the Museum must have been satisfied as to the attribution. It remains the Museum’s responsibility to endorse the attribution or not. Yet again, without documentation as to provenance there is nothing more to be said.
27 comments
None of the Stirlings on Mapping Sculpture fit here.
This might be painted plaster.
Yes, not bronze - but not plaster either. It's zinc/spelter, or possibly aluminium, painted brown to look vaguely bronze-like. I agree with the reading of the signature as 'F [or P] STIRLING', but have no idea who that might be.
This is presumably by a Scottish sculptor and probably second half of the XX century. A 1945 portrait of Shinwell shows him looking younger and with less advanced baldness:
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/emmanuel-shinwell-18841986-206686/view_as/grid/search/keyword:shinwell/page/1
How do you know it is Manny Shinwell? Does it say on it somewhere? Cos I am old enough to remember seeing him on TV , and I have looked at some online piccies to remind me, and it is either a bad likeness by the sculptor ,or it's someone else.
We have no record of what, if anything, is on the base.
When adding this discussion I was prepared to accept that it depicts Manny Shinwell, if a poor likeness: the ears are the wrong shape and size; the nose has a definite bump that Lord Shinwell's never had; and he had a significant amount of hair on the top/back of his head even in advanced old age. This sculpture shows hair that has receded completely to just above the ear level at the back. I thought the eyes and mouth were more characteristic.
This photo was taken in 1984, on the occasion of Lord Shinwell's 100th birthday.
https://bit.ly/3d8Qm7U
Lord Shinwell, aged 90
https://bit.ly/37AmyzK
It is a rather crude rendering, but the identity of the sitter is open to some doubt. The collection should be asked about provenance or other evidence that this is, in fact, Shinwell (or rather, about the basis for the identification).
Comparing image #5 with the 1974 photo linked by Marion does not give a very good match. Apart from the hair, the nose is different.
If the bust is not of Manny Shinwell then there possibly is no connection between the sitter and Scotland, which opens up the possibilities of the sculptor being from anywhere in the British Isles.
Does the accession number signify that date of its entering the collection in 1989?
If someone could rub some coloured chalk dust or the like into the scratched signature, I think it might reveal a little more ????
I suppose this could be an amateur effort meant to be only a very rough approximation of Shinwell.
The collection will try to obtain better photos of the inscription when the office re-opens.
Please find attached a new photograph of the inscription from the collection.
Apart from the signature, I think the basis for the identification of the sitter as Shinwell has to be addressed.
It still seems to be 'F STIRLING', though the 'R' looks more like an 'A'...but that wouldn't make sense for any known UK name. The very crudity of how the name is scratched into the metal suggests a non-professional artist with unsophisticated tools, and unused to signing a metal bust (which is usually done in the clay or plaster, and cast into the metal).
I'm with Jacinto on this. It may be that the Collection has some good evidence to support the identification as Shinwell; but if not, the likeness is in my view nowhere good enough to justify it on that basis alone - in fact looking at the attached profile comparison, I’d be surprised to learn it was meant to be him, whoever made it.
It is almost two years since this discussion came to halt with doubts expressed that this is a portrait of Shinwell. Can it be moved on and can the artist be more specifically identified -probably F STIRLING? Can be gleaned from records of its acquisiton by the Jewish Museum in 1989?
Have Shinwell's several autobiographies been consulted as well as Peter Stoves' authorised biography of 1993?
The National Portrait Gallery must have a substantial file of portraits [mostly photographic] of him in its archive.
Attached are a few video clips of Manny Emmanuel from 1951 to the 1970s.
I can see why there would be a question about the sitter's identity, as there are some highly doubtful elements. But the sculpture does seem to have a little of his character.
International audience discusses weapons standardisation 1951
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93ukenu4L6I
BBC Election 1970 interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMQ-814NcS4
Living in Victorian Times - Manny Shinwell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPPWEIs1v6Q
Can Glasgow supply a photograph of its 1972 sculpture of him by Alan Thornhill?
Martin asks re NPG's file of Shinwell portrait repros. I'm already overloaded with things to pursue on my NPG Heinz archive visit tomorrow but I hope to have a quick initial look at the file to see if there is anything obvious to help us in understanding this nasty little bust.
indeed it is unattractive and could be posthumous - but its source might be identifiable
I had a look at the Shinwell file at the NPG this morning. Almost entirely photos. Our bust could be Shinwell but with an element of caricature or naivety which makes it difficult to say that it definitely is of him.
Martin asks for Glasgow to supply a photograph of its sculpture of Shinwell by Thornhill (20/03/2023). But I suspect that the image posted in the introduction to this discussion may be sufficient for for the purpose, see a clay portrait head by Alan Thornhill at https://bit.ly/2MX2mOX .
On the sitter, I fear that without documentation we're not going to be able to say that it definitely represents Shinwell.
On the artist, it appears to be signed Stirling, as noted above (Osmund, 08/04/2021).
I fear that it may be difficult to say more.
I am sure that you are right , Jacob. The piece could well be by a non-professional - and barring a letter in the Jewish Museum's files, I cannot see any likelihood of progress
If the Jewish Museum can find no more evidence in their files, this discussion should surely be closed as nobody has come up with any acceptable identification of the artist
It's just a guess but the neck looks a lot like the one in this bronze work by an unknown sculptor called “Nirava Kavya”. On Ancestry, "Kayya" is a Latvian and Finnish surname.
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/alfred-thomas-eggington-b-1888-261580
But as discussed previously, this bust appears to be signed 'F STIRLING'.
The only likely person that I could find in the 1939 England and Wales Register is Frances Alice Eleanor Stirling (born Askew, later Fry)(1907–2002) of London. In 1939, she lived at 43 Elvaston Place (near the Natural History Museum in Kensington) and her occupation was "Interior Decorating and Furnishing". She married John Beauchamp Fry (1907–2003) in 1941. Her death was registered in Kensington and Chelsea.