Finding Nemon: The Extraordinary Life of the Outsider Who Sculpted the Famous

Description

`I greatly admire the art of Mr Oscar Nemon, whose prowess in the ancient classical realm of sculpture has won such remarkable appreciation in our country.' - Winston Churchill His talent was classical sculpture, but his gifts lay in capturing the personality of his sitters. It was for both these reasons and a singular determination that Oscar Nemon, an artist born of humble Jewish stock in a small city in modern-day Croatia, found himself before the great and good of twentieth-century society in order to sculpt them. Among his sitters were the Queen, Sigmund Freud, President Truman, Margaret Thatcher and, most famously, Winston Churchill. Daughter of Nemon, Aurelia Young, and author Julian Hale together reveal the fascinating stories behind these artistic and personal encounters: how the Queen came to know him as the 'missing Oscar'; how Nemon became the subject of Churchill's only attempt at sculpture. In searching for Nemon she finds a paradoxical figure; to his sitters he was an outsider, foreign, Jewish, without family, while in the art world he was seen as part of the establishment. Finding Nemon, the first biography of Oscar Nemon to appear in English, finally brings the sculptor out from the shadow of his work.

AURELIA YOUNG (Lady Young, b. 1943) is the daughter of Oscar Nemon. She grew up wandering in and out of her father's studios at the family home in Oxford and later in London. Since his death in 1985, she has been researching her father's life and gives talks about his life and work in the USA, Paris, Brussels, Israel and across the UK. She married George Young in 1964, an MP for forty-one years and now Lord Young of Cookham. JULIAN HALE is a journalist and author of several works of fiction and non-fiction. He was a documentary and features producer for Radio 3, 4 and 5 from 1968-73 and again from 1978-2000.

'His work will ensure that his name and reputation survive.' --Queen Elizabeth II ;'I greatly admire the art of Mr Oscar Nemon, whose prowess in the ancient classical realm of sculpture has won such remarkable appreciation in our country.' --Winston Churchill ;'When my words are forgotten I will be remembered as an excellent example of Nemon's middle period.' --Harold Macmillan ;'During a lifetime that spanned most of the twentieth century Croatia-born Nemon, who fled to Britain before the Second World War, sculpted dukes, kings, queens, lords and field marshals . . . Politicians and war heroes were like putty in his presence.' --Daily Telegraph ;'A marvellous book by Aurelia Young on her late father, the sculptor and genius Oscar Nemon . . . Against the odds, being a Jewish refugee, Nemon's journey brings you close to the people who shaped and impacted on the twentieth century.' --Matthew Parris ;'Oscar Nemon's rare gift of bringing life to those who sat for him (and they included some of the most important figures in Europe) is itself brought to life in Finding Nemon . . . it is a truly fascinating story of one of our finest contemporary sculptors.' --Professor Anthony Glees ;'Aurelia Young has learned a vast amount about her father . . . He remained elusively both outsider and insider, arguably a position occupied by many of the best artists but deeply painful at times.' --Anne Seba