Charles Wheeler (sculptor)

for others with the same name see Charles Wheeler

Bank of England facade, sculpture by Sir Charles Wheeler

Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler KCVO RA (1892-1974) was a British sculptor, and the first sculptor to hold the Presidency of the Royal Academy (from 1956 through 1966).

Wheeler was born in Staffordshire and raised in Wolverhampton. In 1912 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art where he studied under Edouard Lanteri. For World War I Wheeler was classified as unfit for active service and instead modeled artificial limbs for war amputees.

He came to specialize in portraits and architectural sculpture and in London there are examples of his work from the mid 1930s through the mid-1970s. He became RA in 1940 and PRA in 1956. In 1968 he wrote his autobiography High Relief.

Works include:

• 20-foot bronze doors and a major program of sculptures, including the "Lothbury Ladies" and the gilded finial figure of Ariel for the Bank of England, with architect Sir Herbert Baker, 1922-1945
• Fountain and memorial plates for Blackmoor Cloisters (War Memorial) by Sir Herbert Baker.
• sculptures for Rhodes House, Oxford, with Baker, 1927
• sculptures for India House, Aldwych, with Baker, 1928-1930
• sculptures for South Africa House with Baker, 1934
• the western fountain figures in Trafalgar Square, 1948
• allegorical figures of the Seven Seas at the Tower Hill Memorial
• the statue of Wulfruna outside St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton
• the monumental Earth and Water figures for the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall

References

• Public Sculpture of the City of London, by Philip Ward-Jackson

External links

• Works by Charles Wheeler in the collection the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
• 'Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler PRA, KCVO, CBE', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951

Honorary titles
Preceded by Sir Albert Richardson	President of the Royal Academy 1956–1966	Succeeded by Sir Thomas Monnington

Persondata
Name	Wheeler, Charles
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1892
Place of birth
Date of death	1974
Place of death