| Karin Margareta Jonzen | |
| Birth Name: | Karin Margareta Löwenadler |
| Birth Date: | 22 December 1914 |
| Birth Place: | London, England |
| Known For: | Sculpture |
Karin Margareta Jonzen, née Löwenadler, (22 December 1914 – 29 January 1998) was a British figure sculptor whose works, in bronze, terracotta and stone, were commissioned by a number of public bodies in Britain and abroad.[1]
Karin Löwenadler was born in London to Swedish parents and attended the Slade School of Art from 1933 to 1936.[2] At the Slade she won prizes in both painting and sculpture and decided to abandon her original ambition to become a cartoonist and concentrate on sculpture.[3] [4] Jonzen continued her studies at the Royal Academy Stockholm and at the City and Guilds Art School in Kennington during 1939.[2] [5] That same year she won the Prix de Rome, but the beginning of World War II prevented her making use of the travelling scholarship it conferred.[3] During the war she worked as a Civil Defence ambulance driver until she developed rheumatic fever and was given a medical discharge.[6] While recovering Jonzen became convinced that modernism and abstract sculpture was not the way to advance her art and decided to focus on figurative works.[7]
After the war Jonzen's figures and sculptures were bought by some important art collectors, including Robert Sainsbury and Kenneth Clark, although otherwise commercial galleries showed little interest in her work.[1] [7] In 1948 she won the Royal Society of British Sculptors' Feodora Gleichen Award for women artists.[3] [4] A number of high-profile public commissions followed. The Arts Council commissioned her to produce a sculpture for the newly built Southbank Centre and the World Health Organization commissioned works from her for its centres in New Delhi and Geneva.[3] A standing figure was commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Jonzen also participated in the Some Contemporary British Sculpture exhibition organised by the Arts Council in 1956.[8]
Jonzen entered three pieces for the 1968 Sculpture in the City exhibition which was part of that year's City of London Festival.[9] This led to her receiving two commissions from the Corporation of the City of London including her 1972 group Beyond Tomorrow outside the Guildhall.[1] Jonzen was offered the commission on the basis of a small model and subsequently completed the full-size version but was in Sweden when the foundry casting was made. She was disappointed with the casting and had it re-cast, in bronze resin, at her own expense.[9] This version greatly impressed Lord Blackford, a member of the Corporation, to the extant that he paid for a new bronze casting which is the version displayed outside the Guidhall.[9] Jonzen's other commission from the Corporation was for The Gardener, a piece designed to celebrate the work of the Corporation's Trees, Gardens and Open Spaces Committee.[9] The chair of that committee, Frederick Cleary, was also the Treasurer of the Samuel Pepys Club and in that role he commissioned Jonzen to produce a bust of Pepys for Seething Lane Garden.[9]
Jonzen's figurative skills were greatly suited to church sculpture and both Guildford Cathedral and St Mary-le-Bow in London have figures by Jonzen, while the College Chapel at Selwyn College in Cambridge has her 1958 three-figure Ascension group.[3] [10] Subjects of her portrait busts include Paul Scofield, Max Von Sydow, Malcolm Muggeridge and Dame Ninette de Valois, as well as Sir Hugh Casson and Sir A. P. Herbert.[3] [11] The National Portrait Gallery in London holds her bronze bust of Learie Constantine, while the Tate collection includes her 1947/1948 terracotta Head of a Youth.[12] [13] Other works by Jonzen are also held by art galleries in Bradford, Glasgow, Brighton, Southend and in Melbourne, Australia.[14]
Jonzen exhibited on a regular basis at the Royal Academy, with the London Group, the New English Art Club and at the Royal Society of British Artists.[2] [14] She lectured, part-time, on art and art appreciation for the extra-mural department of London University from 1965 to 1970, and at the Camden Arts Centre between 1968 and 1972.[4] Solo exhibitions were held at the Fieldbourne Gallery in London in 1974 and at David Messum Fine Art in 1994.[3] [1]
Academician, Gilbert Ledward, nominated Jonzen for membership of the Royal Academy of Arts on 21 April 1949, she was re-nominated in March 1957, however failing to attract sufficient voters her proposal lapsed seven years later in 1964 in accordance with the Royal Academy's regulations.[15]
Jonzen was married twice, firstly to Basil Jonzen, a well-regarded artist and art collector in his own right, whom she married in 1944 and with whom she ran a successful art gallery for a time. After they divorced she married a former boyfriend, a poet called Ake Sucksdorff who she had first met in 1938.