Josefina de Vasconcellos
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Josefina Alys Hermes de Vasconcellos (26 October 1904-20 July 2005) was an English sculptor of Brazilian origin. She was at one time the world's oldest living sculptor. She married the artist Delmar Banner in 1930. She lived in Cumbria much of her working life. Her most famous work includes Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral and the University of Bradford; Holy Family at Liverpool Cathedral and Gloucester Cathedral; Mary and Child at St. Paul's Cathedral in London; Nativity (at Christmas) at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square; and many more.
Josefina de Vasconcellos' father was a wealthy Brazilian diplomat who helped ensure Josefina was able to develop her artistic talents through a childhood shared between England and Brazil. In 1921 she gained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Art, studying with William Macmillan. At the age of 19 she was accepted to the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, where she studied under Antoine Bourdelle, one of Auguste Rodin's assistants. Before returning to Britain, she also studied with Libero Andreotti in Florence. She was soon sufficiently expressive in stone-carving to place as runner-up in the 1930 Prix de Rome contest.
Also in 1930 she was drawn to the artist Delmar Banner, who was also an Anglican lay priest, and whom she later married. He led her to be baptized into the Anglican church, a faith that has run through much of her artistic work.
They adopted two boys, and the family settled in a farmhouse at The Bield in Little Langdale at the heart of the Lake District. She carved in an outhouse at the farm while Banner painted dramatic landscapes from the summits of the Lakeland fells. In 1967, through associations with Pelham House in West Cumbria, the family helped found Outpost Emmaus, an Outward Bound-type centre for disadvantaged boys at Beckstones in the Duddon Valley. In 1975 de Vasconcellos initiated the founding of The Harriet Trust, on the shores of the Duddon Estuary at Millom so that disabled children could enjoy nature holidays within a purpose-built dwelling; the modified former fishing trawler The Harriet was used as play/games room. It was such work that led to de Vasconcellos being honoured in 1985 with the MBE.
There were numerous large commissions that expressed de Vasconcellos' flowing naturalistic carving. This was at a time when mainstream sculptured art was toying with the more abstract styles of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.
In 1988 illness forced de Vasconcellos to leave Little Langdale, and for a time she was accommodated at Isel Hall near Cockermouth. She was able to find a small cottage and studio at Peggy Hill, Ambleside. She continued her creative work well into her 90s, her final piece (Escape to Light) created in 2001 to commemorate the men of the Independent Off-Shore Rescue Service; it appears at Haverigg on the Cumbrian coast.
De Vasconcellos died peacefully at 6 am on Wednesday, 20 July 2005, a few months after her 100th birthday, at Orchard Lodge nursing home in Blackpool.
[edit] Major Works
Although raised as an atheist, de Vasconcellos' works were frequently religious. Much of her sculpture can be found in parish churches and cathedrals around Britain, including St. Paul's in London and St. Michael's in Coventry and the cathedrals in Blackburn, Bristol, Carlisle, Gloucester, Liverpool, and Norwich.
De Vasconcellos' first commissioned work was in 1924 for the Church of Saint Valéry in Varengeville-sur-Mer, Normandy, which included a life-sized reclining figure of Saint Valéry under the stone altar.
After the Second World War, she created several war memorials, including the Prince of Peace (1950) in Aldershot (repaired in 1998); The Last Chimera (1950), for the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh; and The Hand (1955) for the St. Bees' School in Cumbria.
In 1955, with the help of students from St. Paul's School, she created Mary and Child, a work that appears in the crypt of St. Paul's.
Beginning in 1959, she was commissioned by the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields to construct an annual Nativity scene made of life-sized figures, which became a regular fixture of the Christmas display in Trafalgar Square in London.
In 1977, the faculty of peace studies at Bradford University commissioned a sculpture that de Vasconcellos entitled Reunion. In 1995, to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, bronze casts of this sculpture were renamed Reconciliation and were placed in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral and in the Hiroshima Peace Park in Japan. An additional cast can be found on the grounds of Stormont Castle in Belfast. To mark the opening of the rebuilt German Reichstag (parliament building) in 1999, another cast was placed as part of the Berlin Wall memorial.
