Rupert Forbes Gunnis was an English collector and historian of British sculpture. He is best known for his Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851

Gunnis Dictionary of Sculpture in Britain

The original Gunnis Dictionary of British Sculpture 1660-1851 has been the standard reference work on British sculpture since it was first published in 1953 by Odhams Press. It was researched by Rupert Forbes Gunnis , a civil servant in the British colonial Government of Cyprus, and later curator...

, which "revolutionized the study of British sculpture, providing the foundation for all later studies on the subject".

Life

Born in Cadogan Square

Cadogan Square

Cadogan Square is a square in Knightsbridge named after Earl Cadogan .It is one of the most desirable residential addresses in London. It is formed of a garden surrounded by red-brick houses, the majority of which have now been converted into apartments. Cadogan Square is south of Pont Street, east...

, Gunnis was educated at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

. In 1923 he entered the Colonial Service

Colonial Service

The Colonial Service was the British government service which administered Britain's colonies and protectorates, under the authority of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Colonial Office in London....

, serving as private secretary to the Governor of Uganda (1923–6) and then the Governor of Cyprus

Governor of Cyprus

This is a list of the British High Commissioners and Governors of Cyprus.Hitherto a territory of the Ottoman Empire, a British protectorate under Ottoman suzerainty was established over Cyprus by the Cyprus Convention of 4 June 1878. The United Kingdom declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 5...

 (1926–32). From 1932 to 1935 he worked as Inspector of Antiquities for the Cyprus Museum

Cyprus Museum

The Cyprus Museum is the oldest and largest archaeological museum in Cyprus.The museum houses artefacts discovered during numerous excavations on the island. The museum is home to the most extensive collection of Cypriot antiquities in the world and is located on Museum Street in central Nicosia...

, publishing Historic Cyprus in 1936.

Returning to England in 1939, Gunnis inherited a large fortune with which he settled at Hungershall Lodge in Tunbridge Wells and pursued his antiquarian interests. Around 1942 he began compiling an index of monumental sculptors: this may have originally been intended for inclusion in Katherine Esdaile's projected 'Dictionary of British Sculptors', and after her death in 1950 he published his Dictionary of British Sculptors, 1660-1851 (1951 or 1953; 2nd ed. 1968). An expanded third edition was published in 2009 by Ingrid Roscoe

Ingrid Roscoe

Ingrid Mary Roscoe FSA is a writer on English art and Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire.Dr Ingrid Roscoe was born at Rugby School in 1944 to Dr Arthur Allen and Else, who had married after only meeting three times...

 and a team of scholars at the Henry Moore Insitute.

Works

• Historic Cyprus: a Guide to its Towns and Villages, Monasteries and Castles, 1936
• Dictionary of British Sculptors, 1660-1851, 1953.
• Dictionary of British Sculptors, 1660-1851, revised ed., 1968

External links

• Gunnis, Rupert [Forbes] at the Dictionary of Art Historians