SIR WILLIAM REID DICK R.A. (BRITISH, 1879-1961): 'THE CHILD', BRONZE

SIR WILLIAM REID DICK R.A. (BRITISH, 1879-1961): 'THE CHILD', BRONZEthe kneeling mother holding aloft her baby, who rubs his eyes as if half asleep, raised on a rectangular base, signed 'Reid Dick ARA', green patination,57cm highProvenance:Sir William Reid Dick R.A. and thence by descent to his daughter Ann Benton and thence by descent to her children.Catalogue Note:The marble version of 'The Child' is in the permanent collection of the Royal Academy, London, Object No. 03/1711.‘The Child’ was the sculptor's Diploma work, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1929 after he was voted in as a Royal Academician. The painted Walter Sickert sent him a telegram of congratulations which read 'If a two dimensional may venture to address a three dimensional I think your diploma work one of the loveliest things I have ever seen. You are my exact idea of a sculptor'...Reid Dick depicts the mother in the style of the Virgin Mary, wearing a mantel and full gown falling to the ground; she raises her baby up as if he were the Christ Child to be worshipped. Once again the sculptor references earlier artistic themes, but modernises them through the stylised form of the figures, their almost blank faces, and the focus on outline and line rather than an overall visual effect.Related Literature:The marble version is illustrated in D. Wardleworth, 'William Reid Dick, Sculptor', p. 100.