Charles Wheeler (sculptor)

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for others with the same name see 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
• 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 Church in Wolverhampton
• the monumental Earth and Water figures for the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall

[edit] References

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

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