Frank Roper in later life at his Penarth home.
The sculptor, Frank Roper (1914 – 2000) was born in Haworth. He inherited his natural gift for stone carving from his father, George, and grandfather William, who were both in business as monumental masons at Oakworth.
Frank Roper won a scholarship at Haworth Council School and became a pupil at Keighley Boys’ Grammar. He then studied art at the Keighley School of Art. In 1932 he was awarded a junior art scholarship entitling him to three years special study at Keighley, but concentrating on carpet and wallpaper design. But this was not what he wanted and he subsequently pursued work as a sculptor. His career received a boost in 1936 when one of his works, a 9 inch high sculpture in stone of a Shire horse, was exhibited at Cartwright Hall, Bradford, to great acclaim.
Encouraged, he went on to study at the Royal College of Art in London, but this was not of great benefit to him artistically. He later said of his time at the Royal College:
It rail-roaded students into one way of seeing. Space for accommodation of their skills was so limited; it took me ten years to compensate for those years. (quoted by Roger Wollen, 2003)
During World War Two, Roper helped design tanks and minesweepers for the Ministry of Defence and in 1947, after early post-war appointments at art colleges in Lincoln and Sheffield, he became vice-principal at Cardiff College of Art, where he stayed until his retirement in 1973.
He actively pursued his own work both before and after retirement, which included surreal beasts, bizarre machines and important church commissions. In the 1950s, he invented new casting techniques using aluminium and during the 1960s he worked closely with the architect George Pace, and artist, John Piper, on a series of commissions for the bombed Llandaff Cathedral. Roper’s bronze panels of Welsh flowers mounted on the medieval reredos of the lady chapel of 1964, is regarded as one of his best works. His wall-mounted Stations of the Cross, seen at St. Martin’s in Cardiff, 1959 are also widely admired. In the 1960s Roper said that to find a means of ‘conveying profound emotion with significance’ was his constant artistic task (Wollen, 2003).
‘Last Supper’ at St Martin’s, York
He is also remembered for a lettered panel for the tomb of Bede at Durham Cathedral in 1970, the lady chapel screen at St. David’s Cathedral, Pembrokeshire, 1973 and a Crucifixion sculpture at Peterborough Cathedral, 1974.
Crucificion, Peterborough Cathedral
Roper was also drawn to make mythic figures and animated constructions, including water clocks, musical fountains and even an animated walking lion. In the late 1970s, he collaborated with composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, on 12 zodiac sculptures incorporating musical boxes. His own favourite piece was a small figure of a bishop in full carapace of mitre and regalia. A version purchased by the Contemporary Art Society for Wales is in the national library, Aberystwyth.
His work was regularly exhibited with the Howard Roberts Gallery, Cardiff, the South Wales Group, the Welsh Arts Council and the Royal Academy. He was an elected member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and in 1990 he was awarded an OBE for his ecclesiastical work.
Petroc Window, Caerphilly
Frank Roper was the subject of two BBC films: ‘Mind Into Metal’ (1964), and in 1976 he featured in the documentary series ‘Look, Stranger’.
He met his wife, the artist, Nora Ellison, at Keighley College, and together later in life they worked on architectural glass, including a commission for for St Peter’s Church, Chippenham (1968). In later life he and his wife lived in Penarth, Wales, and when Nora died in 1999, frank designed a memorial to her, of simple cast letters fixed to a sea-worn stone, at Lavernock church, near Penarth. When he himself became terminally ill with cancer, he designed the letters for his own matching memorial.
Bibliography:
The Religious Art of Frank Roper: An introduction with text by Peter Leech. Researched and compiled by the Roper Exhibition Group, Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff. Published for the Roper Exhibition Group by RJL Smith & Associates, Much Wenlock, 2003.
Wollen, Roger, 2003. Catalogue of the Methodist Church Collection of Modern Christian Art, with an account of the Collection’s history. Published by the Trustees of the Methodist Collection of Christian Art.