Biography
His early work consisted mainly of paintings, the few surviving examples showing how impressed he was by the Post-Impressionist exhibitions organized by Roger Fry. After the First World War (when he was on active service with the Artists’ Rifles), he turned increasingly to sculpture, and in the 1920s and 1930s gained an outstanding reputation: in 1925 Roger Fry described his work as true sculpture and pure sculpture ... almost the first time that such a thing has been even attempted in England’. He worked in both bronze and stone (he was one of the earliest to revive direct carving) and his sophisticated stylizations made him one of the pioneers of modern British sculpture. The monumental dignity of his work was in the Classical tradition of Maillol, and like him Dobson found the female nude the most satisfactory subject for three-dimensional composition, as in Cornucopia (University of Hull, 1925-7), described by Clive Bell as the finest piece of sculpture by an Englishman since-I don’t know when’. He was also outstanding as a portrait sculptor, as witness his head of Sir Osbert Sitwell in polished brass (Tate, London, 1923), and besides stone carving produced many exquisitely beautiful terracottas. His craftsmanship was superb and he played an important role as a liberal-minded and kind-hearted teacher at the Royal College of Art, where he was Professor of Sculpture, 1946-53. With the rise of a younger generation led by Henry Moore, however, Dobson’s prestige as an artist dropped and he was regarded as dated’; the memorial exhibition of his work organized by the Arts Council in 1966 was not well received. Since then he has again been recognized as one of the outstanding figures in 20th-cent. British sculpture.