FLIGHT BY WILLI SOUKOP

Chris Pack

(EGS 1962- 70) wrote back in June 2019:

Took a trip down memory lane today. I was saddened to learn the Ealonian Room had been ravaged by fire, and presumably the bird in flight sculpture lost. You asked if anyone knew who fashioned the sculpture and I am pleased to say that fifty years on I do.

Oh how I loved that thing!   I fancy my boyish finger prints were all over it!

The artist was Willi Soukop [1907=1995]

Regards

Chris Pack

David Cocker

(EGS Head Boy 1955 to 56) wrote regarding the date of the photo:

I have just had a look again at the collection of photographs in the latest Newsletter, and realise that the wrong date has been attributed to the photo of the Ealonian Room.  

The photo was taken at the same time that the school acquired the piece of sculpture "Flight" or "Bird in Flight", which was in the school year 1955-56.  

A photographer arrived from somewhere (by arrangement presumably), and as Head Boy I was asked to find at that moment some people to "decorate" the photo.  The three I found must have been lounging around the next door prefects' room.  They are from left to right: David Gardner, myself (standing), Brian Jones, Raymond Calcroft.

I take it that the instruction we were given was "try to look studious"!

WIKIPEDIA provides the following information about the sculptor:

Willi Soukop RA (5 January 1907 – 8 February 1995)

Willhelm Joseph Soukop was a sculptor, member of the Royal Academy and early teacher of Elisabeth Frink.

Soukop's work is prominently on display at Hull University in front of the Brynmor Jones Library.

The older section has two exterior bas-relief sculptures by Willi Soukop, one is of an owl, the other shows a human figure representing the light of knowledge and is positioned directly over the main entrance.

SAUNDERS FINE ART provides the following information about the sculptor on the internet, referring to the Independent Newspapers obituary dated 9th February 1995:

Willi Soukop RA 

(5 January 1907 – 8 February 1995)

Willhelm Joseph Soukop was a sculptor, member of the Royal Academy and early teacher of Elisabeth Frink.

Soukop's work is prominently on display at Hull University in front of the Brynmor Jones Library.

Wilhelm Josef Soukop, Sculptor: RBA 1950; FRBS 1956; ARA 1963, RA 1969; Master of Sculpture, Royal Academy Schools 1969-82.

Married 1945 Simone Moser (died 1993; one son, one daughter); died Glasgow 8 February 1995.

"My life was never planned, it just happened," said Willi Soukop. A comment that many Europeans who endured the upheaval of two world wars would have in common.

Born in Vienna in 1907, of an Austrian mother and a Czech father, he displayed a natural artistic talent when he produced aged four a chalk drawing of a tree. As well as the normal state school education, he became a student of drawing by night and an apprentice engraver by day. In 1919 his father, who had been wounded in the war, committed suicide, leaving his wife to cope with Willi and two other children. To supplement the pittance he earned as an apprentice, he worked nights carving umbrella handles and ivory boxes for a local trader. This provided a small income that enabled him in time to afford to study sculpture at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna.

After six years Soukop met a sympathetic Englishwoman who lived in Devon and who invited him to England to escape, at least for a few weeks, the political and economic misery of Vienna.

So it was in 1934 Soukop came to stay at Dartington near Totnes in south Devon. He was given the use of a studio and was able to carve, even sell, his work in a congenial atmosphere. Dartington Hall was owned by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, who created a virtual international centre for the arts.

This had a tremendous effect on Soukop, and its influence on him lasted decades, with the friendships formed enduring to his death. European exiles came to Dartington, such as the entire Jooss Ballet from Germany, Michael Chekhov and his drama school, and Bernard Leach and his son David, the celebrated potter, with whom Soukop formed a lasting friendship and who taught him the art of pottery. Another friendship in 1937 was with the artist and gallery-owner Eardley Knollys, whose Storran Gallery gave Soukop his first one-man show in 1938.