Sculpture: Portrait of Sir Henry Wood. Bronze bust by Donald Gilbert, 1936

artefact

Presented by Lady Jessie Wood, February 1955

Sir Henry Wood Collection

Sculpture: Portrait of Sir Henry Wood, head and shoulders, wearing a suit and his familiar bow tie. Bronze bust by Donald Gilbert, 1936.

Each July this bust is removed from its home at the Royal Academy of Music and placed on the platform at the Royal Albert Hall, where it is garlanded with a chaplet of laurel and remains throughout the BBC Promenade Concert series. At the end of the series, in September, the chaplet is taken to St Sepulchre's Church, the musicians' chapel, where there is a memorial stained-glass window to him, and a service is held in his memory.

Sir Henry Wood was the first conductor of the 'Mr Robert Newman Promenade Concerts,' as they were called, founded in 1895. In 1927 the BBC took over the Proms and for three years, until the founding of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1930, the concerts were given by 'Sir Henry Wood and his Symphony Orchestra'. The Queen's Hall, home of the Proms, was bombed on 10th May 1941 and the bronze bust survived, along with the large Portland stone busts of Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and (probably) Purcell, now also in the care of the Royal Academy of Music.

1936

3-dimensional (work of art), conductor, bust, sculpture, commemorative, archive

cast

bronze

Type	Length	Width	Height	Diameter	Unit (length)
height of bust			560		mm
width of bust (shoulder to shoulder)		480			mm
depth of bust	370				mm

2002.207