Oscar Nemon was born into a Jewish family in Osijek, Austria-Hungary (now Croatia) in 1906. Following his flight to Britain in 1938, he sculpted many high-profile figures, including members of the British Royal Family, and war heroes, such as American president, Dwight D Eisenhower. His best-known work is a series of public statues of Winston Churchill, who stated that Nemon was his favourite sculptor.
Sculptor Oscar Nemon was born Oscar Neumann into a Jewish family in Osijek, Austria-Hungary (now Croatia) in 1906. From an early age, he became an accomplished artist, utilising clay from local brickworks. While still at school (between 1923–24) he exhibited some of his earliest works. He subsequently moved to Vienna, where he applied to study at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. After failing to secure a place, he spent time working at a bronze foundry in the city, owned by his uncle. In 1925, Nemon moved to Brussels to study at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, winning a gold medal for sculpture. He continued to live in Brussels until 1938, returning once to Vienna in 1931, where he created a large seated sculpture of Sigmund Freud. Around 1931 he changed his family name to Nemon. He held a solo exhibition at the Académie, showing portrait heads of influential members of Belgian society, including Paul-Henri Spaak, King Albert I and Emile Vandervelde. His materials were predominantly clay, plaster and stone, with finished works cast in bronze.
Due to the rise of Nazism, Nemon escaped to England in 1938, a year before the outbreak of war, abandoning over a decade's work in his studio. He was forced to leave his mother and brother behind, and they perished in the Holocaust, along with almost the entire Jewish community of Osijek. Nemon settled in Oxford and set to work, and in 1942 a small exhibition of portraits was arranged locally at Regent's Park College. In 1939 he married Patricia Villiers-Stuart, and the couple settled in Boars Hill outside Oxford. Nemon continued to make busts and portraits throughout his career, including portraits of the Director of the Tate Gallery, John Rothenstein; Karl Parker, Keeper of the Department of Fine Art, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the essayist and caricaturist, Max Beerbohm. In 1948, he became a naturalised British subject and, subsequently, sculpted members of the British Royal Family (Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother; Earl Mountbatten of Burma; and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh) and war heroes, such as the American president, Dwight D Eisenhower. His best-known works are a series of public statues of Winston Churchill, who said that Nemon was his favourite sculptor. They are sited in various locations, including the House of Commons in London and Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto. In 1977 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Nemon had a retrospective at the Ashmolean Museum in 1982 and completed his last major work in 1984, which was a monumental memorial to the Royal Canadian Air Force, unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in Toronto. Oscar Nemon died at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in 1985. Churchill College in Cambridge holds archive material relating to sculptures of Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, including letters, photographs and drawings. The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds holds photographs and sketches created by Nemon in Vienna and Brussels during the 1920s and 1930s. His works can be found in public collections including the Palace of Westminster, Freud Museum, British Museum, National Portrait Gallery and the Government Art Collection, London, and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Oscar Nemon]
Publications related to [Oscar Nemon] in the Ben Uri Library