A FRENCH BRONZE FIGURE OF AN AFRICAN WOMAN

Ward came to sculpture as a medium relatively late in his varied career in the late 1890s. He apprenticed himself to Goscombe John RA before moving permanently to work in France in 1899, where he received a mention honourable in 1901 at the Salon des Artistes Français for his first sculpture, and then two gold awards in 1908 and 1910. He witnessed some of the worst atrocities and suffering during the colonial rule of the Congo Free State, whilst on various expeditions in central Africa between 1884-1889.