Torso

EDWARD GODWIN
(1876-1957)

Torso

Bronze

18.5 cm., 7 ¼ in. high

Edward Godwin was the son of the Aesthetic movement architect and designer Edward William Godwin and his second wife, Beatrix Birnie Philip (1857-1896). Following the death of E W Godwin in 1886, Beatrix married James McNeill Whistler who thus became Edward Godwin’s stepfather.

Edward studied at a private boarding school called St Andrews in Caterham, presumably at Whistler’s expense. Whistler asked Alfred Stevens, possibly the Belgian painter, Alfred Emile-Leopold Stevens to supervise Edward’s education. In 1901, Edward was living with his grandmother, Frances Birnie Philip, next door to Whistler and his mother at 36 Tite Street. He exhibited a number of times at the Royal Academy between 1905-1921. Godwin’s known works include the bronze angels on Whistler’s tomb in the graveyard of St Nicholas’s Church, Chiswick, and a portrait bust of Ronald Murray Philip (his uncle), a 1905 bronze figure of Perseus (ex. Christopher Wood) and a 1912 figure of St Agnes Eve.