Ronald Moody
| Ronald Moody | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Ronald Clive Moody 12 August 1900 Kingston, Jamaica |
| Died | 6 February 1984 (aged 83) London, England |
Ronald Moody (12 August 1900 – 6 February 1984) was a Jamaican-born sculptor, specialising in wood carvings. His work features in prestigious collections including the National Portrait Gallery, London and Tate Britain, as well as the National Gallery of Jamaica. He was the brother of anti-racist campaigner Harold Moody and award-winning physiologist Ludlow Moody.
Moody was born Ronald Clive Moody in 1900 in Kingston, Jamaica, into a well-off professional family. He attended Calabar College, Jamaica, moving to London in 1923 to study dentistry at King's College London, obtaining his degree in 1930. In London, he was inspired by the British Museum's collection of non-Western art and decided to become a sculptor. Early experiments with clay led him to teach himself how to carve. He produced his first carved figure in oak wood. Entitled Wohin (meaning in German “where to?”, the name of a song by Schubert), that sculpture was bought by Marie Seton in 1935.
Among Moody's most famous works from this period was his great female head, Midonz (1937), which he described as "the goddess of transmutation". By the late 1930s, he had accumulated an impressive collection of work and had a solo show in Paris, France. The success of the show encouraged him to move to Paris in 1938. That year, 12 major sculptures were sent to the Harmon Foundation in the United States to be included in exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art. His success in France was cut short by the onset of the Second World War. In 1940, two days before Paris fell to the Germans, Moody was forced to flee the city, abandoning his sculptures. (They were retrieved after the war, along with the 12 works that had been sent to the US for exhibition.)
...
Wikipedia