John Bacon the Elder
Person Male Born 1740 Died 1799
Awarded the first gold medal for sculpture by the Royal Academy in 1769. Other works: Samuel Johnson (1796) in St Paul's Cathedral. Ornamental Passions writes : John Bacon was the son of a clothworker in Southwark who became rich and famous churning out memorials for churches. Philip Ward-Jackson has written of him: "His great abilities as a sculptor were disagreeably offset by what some saw as a smug and smarmily pious manner."
