Alexander Munro was a British sculptor of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

Son of a stonemason, his talents were supported by financial assistance from his father’s employer, the Duchess of Sutherland. He came to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1848 to study sculpture under Charles Barry

Charles Barry

Sir Charles Barry FRS was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens.- Background and training :Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster...

. He exhibited at the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

 from 1849–70, and in the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Munro was a close associate of Thomas Woolner

Thomas Woolner

Thomas Woolner RA was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members....

, the only sculptor to be a member of the original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...

. He was also friendly with Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

. Munro is significant in the history of the movement since he is often cited as a contributor to the controversy over Pre-Raphaelitism in 1850, when he "leaked" the information that the group formed a secret brotherhood.

In 1854, with Thomas Woolner, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

, Edward Burne-Jones

Edward Burne-Jones

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...

, Lowes Cato Dickinson

Lowes Cato Dickinson

Lowes Cato Dickinson was a portrait painter and Christian socialist. He taught drawing with Ruskin and Rossetti. He was a founder of the Working Men's College in London.-Life:...

 and John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, Munro began teaching at the newly established Working Men's College

Working Men's College

The Working Men's College- WMC, being among the earliest adult education institutions established in the United Kingdom, is Europe's oldest extant centre for adult education and perhaps one of its smallest...

.

Munro's sculptures were noted for their formal simplicity. His most famous work was Paolo and Francesca, which was exhibited at the 1851 exhibition. It depicted the lovers as languid, dreamy and genteel, contributing to the popular image of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The plaster version of the sculpture is currently on display in Wallington Hall

Wallington Hall

Wallington is a country house and gardens located about west of Morpeth, Northumberland, England, near the village of Cambo. It has been owned by the National Trust since 1942, after it was donated by Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan, the first donation of its kind...

, which also contains a portrait relief bust of Pauline, Lady Trevelyan

Pauline, Lady Trevelyan

Lady Trevelyan was an English painter, married in May 1835 to Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, 6th Baronet....

 created by Munro.

He later created public sculptures in Berkeley Square

Berkeley Square

Berkeley Square is a town square in the West End of London, England, in the City of Westminster. It was originally laid out in the mid 18th century by architect William Kent...

 and Hyde Park Corner

Hyde Park Corner

Hyde Park Corner is a place in London, at the south-east corner of Hyde Park. It is a major intersection where Park Lane, Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, Grosvenor Place and Constitution Hill converge...

, as well as several memorial statues. Six of the seventeen statues of scientists in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Oxford University Museum of Natural History

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sometimes known simply as the Oxford University Museum, is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It also contains a lecture theatre which is used by the...

 are his work, all produced circa 1860.

John Arthur Ruskin Munro

John Arthur Ruskin Munro

John Arthur Ruskin Munro was the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.J. A. R. Munro was the son of the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor Alexander Munro...

, later Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...

, was his son.

External links

• Alexander Munro (1825–1871) at the Victorian Web
  Victorian Web
  The Victorian Web is an online resource of information about the Victorian Era created at Brown University and at the University Scholars Program of the National University of Singapore....
  
  
• The Pre-Raph Pack Discover more about the artists, the techniques they used and a timeline spanning 100 years.