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Our Lady of the Isles

Sculptor: Lorimer, Hew Martin, RSA · 1907-1993

In 1957 Lorimer exhibited a piece at the RSA entitled "Our Lady of the Isles - carved model, plaster cast." catalogue number 46. This piece, like the Diploma Work relates to the monumental statue "Our Lady of the Isles" on South Uist. This Creetown granite statue is 27 foot and 9 inches high and weighs about 65 tons. It was carved between 1954 and 1956 from nine blocks of granite by Lorimer with the assistance of the stone carver Maxwell Allan and the workshop of Allen and Sons, Edinburgh. There is a letter in Hew Lorimer's deceased member file from him to Sir William MacTaggart dated 1956-05-25 where he mentions working on the model of 'Our Lady of the Isles', most probably the model that was exhibited at the RSA in 1957 "Finally I am still at work / on the third scale carved model for the 'Our Lady of the Isles' statue and must have it complete/ by 3rd July, I am very much working against/ time. In my optimism I had hoped to have it/ ready to put into the RSA!!' In Hew Lorimer's studio at Kellie Castle in Fife there is a one -third scale plaster model of 'Our Lady of the Isles'. The small bronze version of the large statue that Hew Lorimer deposited as his Diploma Work differs slightly from the original in that the gaze of the Madonna and Child are directed downwards rather than outwards as in the large statue and also there is more detail in the garments of the Madonna such as the detail of the fringe to the shawl compared with the cleaner, more abstracted lines of the original statue. Hew Lorimer admitted himself that 'Our Lady of the Isles' echoes Antoine Bourdelle's 'Vierge d'Alsace' (bronze version in grounds of Dean Gallery, Edinburgh) (see Martin Kemp 'Hew Lorimer: from spirit to stone' article in 'Scultpure Journal' (2006)