Museum Highlight


Albert C. Carter

In 2017 you could take a short self-guided tour of works by past RGA members which were on display, including Head Carved in Limestone by Albert C Carter in the windows gallery. [Highlighted: Oct 2017]

Head Carved in Limestone
by Albert C. Carter (1894–1958)

Carved Limestone
42cm x 21cm x 18cm
Date: 1957

RGA member: 1930–1958
(Vice-President 1933–1934
President 1934–1958, died in office)

Reading Museum Accession Number
REDMG : 1957.62.1

This work was simply called Head Carved in Limestone in the catalogue of the Reading Guild of Artists Twenty-Seventh Annual Exhibition, Municipal Art Gallery Reading May 4 – June 1, 1957.

One of the most long-standing Presidents of the Reading Guild of Artists was sculptor, Albert Clarence Carter, in a time when the position was not limited to 5 years. A member of the RGA Council from the very first year, he became President in 1934, a position he held until his death in 1958. ‘A formidable man, whose influence was to be both powerful and sustained’. Born in Lambeth, Albert was the second son of a carpenter, and at 19 was an apprentice metal engraver. He would exhibit metalwork as well as sculptures and the occasional oil painting at the RGA Annual Exhibitions. His sculptures, mainly portraits, and figures, were worked in stone, marble, and wood. He’d studied at Lambeth and Central Schools of Art.

In 1933 he gave an illustrated lecture ‘The Meaning of Sculpture’, in which he began by saying that he ‘found it very difficult to reconcile so-called modern sculpture with his ideals’. Extolling the virtues of the classical approach he pointed out that ‘in great historic periods the best work had been produced by civilisation that was approaching its ideal’. He was a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.


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