Who is Charles Web Gilbert?

Charles Marsh Webb Gilbert (18 March 1867 – 3 October 1925), known professionally as Charles Web Gilbert, was a self-taught Australian sculptor renowned both within Australia and abroad.

Gilbert was born at Cockatoo in Victoria, between Talbot and Maryborough. His dad died following he was two months old, and his mommy was left taking into account three youth children. Gilbert established a state college education but began to earn his living past he was 10 years old. Coming to Melbourne, he obtained a position at Parer’s Crystal Café & Hotel where he eventually became a pastry chef. It has been avowed that the modelling of ornaments for wedding cakes first turned his thoughts in the paperwork of sculpture. He entered the national gallery drawing moot in 1888 and attended for two and a half years, but never went upon to the painting school. In the late 1890s he began to exhibit at the Yarra Sculptors’ Society and the Victorian Artists’ Society. Until 1905 his take steps was whatever in marble and following he began experimenting in casting in bronze he met later than many difficulties and could locate no one in Melbourne to back up him. He persevered, became an excellent caster, and in the course of others did portrait heads in bronze of John Mather, A. McClintock, John Shirlow, Hugh McCrae and Bernard O’Dowd. The last was acquired for the National Gallery of Victoria in 1913 under the Felton bequest.

In May 1914, encouraged and helped by an American resident of Melbourne, Hugo Meyer, Gilbert went to London and in animosity of the proceedings persevered taking into account his produce an effect as he was without difficulty over military age . He exhibited at the Royal Academy where the sincerity of his play-act met afterward early appreciation, and in 1917 his marble head “The Critic” was purchased for the Tate Gallery through the Chantrey Bequest. He was nominated as a consequence for an associateship of the Royal Academy. He was after that employed as a lawsuit artist by the Commonwealth meting out and made, for the feat museum, many models of land exceeding which the Australians fought. He returned to Australia in 1920 and completed the 2nd Division monument, which was afterwards unveiled at Mont St. Quentin in the presence of Marshal Foch.

His other court case memorials complement large and dramatic bronze sculptures of Australian soldiers in public streets in Broken Hill in New South Wales and the City of Burnside in South Australia, as without difficulty as those for the Melbourne University medical theoretical and the Victorian Chamber of Manufacturers. Another important operate was the outfit of three figures for the Matthew Flinders memorial which stands uncovered St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne. His bordering important piece of undertaking was the Australian Memorial for Port Said. Gilbert had always been accustomed to doing everything for himself, and wore himself out carrying clay for the big full size model and died suddenly on 3 October 1925. He married Alice Rose Eugenia Daniell in 1887, they divorced in 1911. He married anew while in London and left a widow, Mabel Annette Gilbert, née Woodstock, with three children, daughter Marj, and identical twin sons, Charlie and Jim.

Gilbert is buried at Coburg Cemetery, Preston, Victoria. His grave is included in a self-guided heritage mosey at the cemetery and recommendation about his sparkle and death are available upon a sign posted at his graveside.