HARRY

BATES (1850-1899)  , British sculptor, was born at Stevenage, Hefts; on the 26th of April i85o . He began his career as a carver's assistant, and before beginning the regular study of plastic art he passed through a long apprenticeship in architectural decoration . In 1879 he came to London and entered the Lambeth School of Art, studying under Jules Dalou and Rodin, and winning a silver medal in the national competition at South Kensington . In 1881 he was admitted to the Royal Academy schools, where in 1883 he won the gold medal and the travelling scholarship of £200 with his relief of " Socrates teaching the People in the Agora," which showed grace of line and harmony of composition . He then went to Paris and studied under Rodin . A head and three small bronze panels (the " Odyssey,") executed by Bates in Paris, were exhibited at the Royal Academy, and selected for purchase by the Chantrey trustees; but the selection had to be cancelled because they had not been modelled in England . His " Aeneas " (1885), " Homer " (1886), three " Psyche " panels and " Rhodope " (1887) all showed marked advance in form and dignity; and in 1892, after the exhibition of his vigorously designed " Hounds in Leash," Bates was elected A.R.A . • This and his " Pandora," in marble and ivory, which was bought in the same year for the Chantrey Bequest, are now in the Tate Gallery . The portrait-busts of Harry Bates are good pieces of realism—strong, yet delicate in technique, and excellent in character . His statues have a picturesqueness in which the refinement of the sculptor is always felt . Among the chief of these are the fanciful" Maharaja of Mysore," somewhat overladen with ornament, and the colossal equestrian statue of Lord Roberts (1896) upon its important pedestal, girdled with a frieze of figures, now set up in Calcutta, and a statue of Queen Victoria for Dundee . But perhaps his masterpiece, showing the sculptor's delicate fancy and skill in composition, was an allegorical presentment of "Love and Life "—a winged male figure in bronze, with a female figure in ivory being crowned by the male .

Bates died in London on the 3oth of

January 1899, his premature death robbing English plastic art of its most promising representative at the time .