Rupert Forbes Gunnis (11 March 1899, London - 31 July 1965, near Reading) was an English collector and historian of British sculpture. He is best known for his Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851, which "revolutionized the study of British sculpture, providing the foundation for all later studies on the subject".[1]
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Born in Cadogan Square, Gunnis was educated at Eton College. In 1923 he entered the Colonial Service, serving as private secretary to the Governor of Uganda (1923–6) and then the Governor of Cyprus (1926–32). From 1932 to 1935 he worked as Inspector of Antiquities for the Cyprus Museum, publishing Historic Cyprus in 1936.[1]
Returning to England in 1939, Gunnis inherited a large fortune with which he settled at Hungershall Lodge in Tunbridge Wells and pursued his antiquarian interests. Around 1942 he began compiling an index of monumental sculptors: this may have originally been intended for inclusion in Katherine Esdaile's projected 'Dictionary of British Sculptors', and after her death in 1950 he published his Dictionary of British Sculptors, 1660-1851 (1951[2] or 1953[1]; 2nd ed. 1968). An expanded third edition was published in 2009 by Ingrid Roscoe and a team of scholars at the Henry Moore Institute.[2]