Edward Alfred Briscoe Drury was a British architectural sculptor and artist active in the New Sculpture movement.
20 Facts About Alfred Drury
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Alfred Drury was born in Islington, London but raised in Oxford, where his father was a pub landlord.
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Alfred Drury studied at the Oxford School of Art and then at the National Art Training School in South Kensington, where his teachers included Jules Dalou and, later, Edouard Lanteri.
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Alfred Drury won gold medals in National Art Competitions in 1879,1880 and 1881 before moving to Paris where he worked as an assistant to Dalou until 1885.
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When he returned to London, Alfred Drury worked as an assistant to the sculptor Joseph Edgar Boehm and began establishing himself as an independent artist.
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In 1885 Alfred Drury showed his first work at the Royal Academy, a terracotta copy of a sculpture by Dilou, The Triumph of Silenus.
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Alongside work on his exhibition pieces, Alfred Drury began undertaking architectural commissions.
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Alfred Drury is known to have completed the two low-relief bronze plaques, featuring the head of a river god and female figures, installed to mark the opening of the Blackwall Tunnel in 1897.
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Alfred Drury collaborated with architect Inigo Thomas on a decorative scheme for the gardens at Barrow Court near Bristol.
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Alfred Drury was awarded a gold medal at the 1900 Paris International Exhibition for a version of Circe and for a bust of a child, The Age of Innocence.
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In 1905, Alfred Drury exhibited a new cast of the Evening head titled Spirit of the Night and in 1911 carved a marble version of the statue.
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The artistic choices Alfred Drury made with the pairings and the amount of detail he incorporated into the carvings drew much attention in the newspaper coverage of the new building.
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Alfred Drury's work was singled out for praise in art press reviews when the overall scheme was completed in 1908.
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That same year, Webb commissioned Alfred Drury to produce a relief panel, of children at play, for the new offices of the Grand Trunk Railway Company in Cockspur Street in central London.
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Alfred Drury was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1900 and a full Academician in 1913.
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Alfred Drury exhibited works at the Academy each year from 1885 to 1942, and at the Royal Scottish Academy between 1903 and 1917.
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Alfred Drury showed works at the Aberdeen Artists Society, the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and at Leeds City Art Gallery on a regular basis.
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Alfred Drury was a member of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers and, from 1899, a member of the Art Workers' Guild.
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In 1932, Alfred Drury received the Royal Society of British Sculptors' silver medal for his statue of Joshua Reynolds in the courtyard of Burlington House in London.
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Alfred Drury lived and worked at Gunter Grove in Chelsea, London.