Laurence Bradshaw (1899–1978) was an English sculptor, printmaker, and artist. Bradshaw was a life-long socialist and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in the 1930s, remaining a member for the rest of his life. He is most famous for being the sculptor who created the bust of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

for the

Tomb of Karl Marx The Tomb of Karl Marx stands in the Eastern cemetery of Highgate Cemetery, North London, England. It commemorates the burial sites of Marx, of his wife, Jenny von Westphalen, and other members of his family. Originally buried in a different part ...

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

. During his career, he also painted posters for Transport London, the Spanish International Brigades, the British-Soviet Friendship Society, and also the

Marx Memorial Library The Marx Memorial Library in London, United Kingdom is a library, archive, educational, and community outreach charity focused on Marxist and wider socialist bodies of work. England and Wales charity number: 270309. Its collection comprises over ...

Early life and career

Laurence Henderson Bradshaw was born in Chester in 1899. Laurence attended

Liverpool College of Art Liverpool College of Art is located at 68 Hope Street, in Liverpool, England. It is a Grade II listed building. The original building, facing Mount Street, was designed by Thomas Cook and completed in 1883. The extension along Hope Street, ...

and completed his studies in painting and sculpting in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. During the beginning of his artistic career, Bradshaw became the assistant to Welsh artist Frank Brangwyn in the 1920s. Bradshaw's art quickly became prolific, demonstrating his wide variety of artistic talents. During the 1930s he undertook a number of public works, including sculpting the decorations for

Worthing Town Hall Worthing Town Hall, or New Town Hall, is a municipal building in Chapel Road, Worthing, West Sussex, England. The town hall, which is a meeting place of Worthing Borough Council, is a Grade II listed building. Located at Chapel Road in the cent ...

(1933–34), and a stone relief depicting a mother and child for Oxford's Radcliffe Maternity ward (1935), which is today located within the Radcliffe Primary Care Building. As Bradshaw's fame and skills increased, he was commissioned to create numerous posters for London Transport from 1935 to 1937 to promote the rural green line bus services. During the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

he created artworks in support of the anti-fascist forces of the International Brigades. One of these anti-fascist artworks was a hand-painted banner memorialising two International Brigade volunteers who had died in Spain, W. Langman and A. Bird, alongside 19 other volunteers with the caption "Hammersmith Communist Party Sends Greetings to Comrades Fighting in Spain".

Second World War film-making

Fresh from creating anti-fascist artworks to promote the Spanish International Brigades, Bradshaw became an official war artist for the Norwegian government during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. Having studied film with the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

film-maker

Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...

, Bradshaw produced three wartime propaganda movies for the wartime Ministry of Information. For his services to British information services during the war, Bradshaw was awarded a civil pension from the British government. During the war, the Nazis bombed his studio, destroying many of the records of his earlier works.

Later career

Creation of Karl Marx's tomb

By far Laurence Bradshaw's most famous work is the creation of the busts for the

, erected in London's

. In 1955, Bradshaw won the commission to design the

at his burial place in

, which was then unveiled at a ceremony in 1956. This ceremony was attended by the leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB)

Harry Pollitt Harry Pollitt (22 November 1890 – 27 June 1960) was a British communist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from 1929 to September 1939 and again from 1941 until his death in 1960. Pollitt spent ...

, the socialist singer and black civil rights leader

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional American football, football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplish ...

, and the Soviet Union's British ambassador, and the president of the

scientist J. D. Bernal. Bradshaw designed the whole of Marx's monument including the plinth and the calligraphy of the texts on the monument, but did not sign the finished work. Bradshaw considered that his design must be "...not a monument to a man only but to a great mind and a great philosopher." The tomb was designated a Grade I listed monument in 1974.

Other achievements

During his later career, Bradshaw was elected the Master of the

Art Workers' Guild The Art Workers' Guild is an organisation established in 1884 by a group of British painters, sculptors, architects, and designers associated with the ideas of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. The guild promoted the 'unity of a ...

in 1958, and was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. Other notable communist figures that Bradshaw sculpted included the African-American scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois, the Trinidadian musician and actor Edric Connor, the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid, and the British communist leader

. Bradshaw eventually became the chair of the British Soviet Friendship Society (BSFS) when

Andrew Rothstein Andrew Rothstein (26 September 1898 – 22 September 1994) was a British journalist. A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), Rothstein was one of the leading public faces of the British Communist movement, serving as a member ...

was the BSFS's president. Bradshaw created numerous artworks and illustrations for the BSFS's published materials, including the front cover of their journal in 1970 commemorating

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

. In 1970 Bradshaw created an artwork commemorating Lenin in the main hall of the

. This bronze relief was unveiled on 22 April 1970 and was inscribed with the words:

"1870-1924. LENIN. In this house, then the British Social Democrat's ‘Twentieth Century Press’, Lenin, leader of the victorious October Revolution, edited Iskra, the first all-Russian socialist newspaper, in 1902-3."

Death and legacy

Laurence Henderson Bradshaw died in 1978. After Bradshaw's death, Andrew Rothstein paid tribute to his life, praising his work and personal character:

“That same profound sympathy with the wretched and the exploited; his vigorous revolt against the conditions which condemned the human race to poverty and war, brought him very many years ago to Socialism and to a consistent and unfaltering Marxism…it was Laurence Bradshaw who put first into the small model, then into the plaster enlargement from which the bronze head was cast, into every line and massive detail of the whole work, his own passionate comprehension of Marx's supreme intelligence and indomitable resolution”.

Archival information for researchers regarding the life and activities of Laurence Bradshaw can be found at the Henry Moore Institute Archive in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

References

External links

Laurence Bradshaw's posters at the London Transport Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradshaw, Laurence 1899 births 1978 deaths Alumni of Liverpool John Moores University Alumni of the University of Liverpool Artists from Liverpool English communists English printmakers English sculptors English male sculptors Transport design in London 20th-century English painters 20th-century British sculptors Communist Party of Great Britain members 20th-century British printmakers Masters of the Art Worker's Guild 20th-century English male artists