Ernest Fuller Fabian RWA

Born 1867
Died 11 April 1931

Active: 1886 - 1931

Country of birth and death: England

Sculptor, teacher of modelling

Born in Winchester, Hampshire. He was the son of Josiah Fabian (born c.1830 in Hilsea, Hampshire), who ran a successful business as an ironmonger in Winchester. Ernest began his studies at the local art school and learned wood carving (possibly serving an apprenticeship) with a local craftsman named Mr. Thomas.

Fabian then studied at the South Kensington School of Art (National Art Training School) and held a National Scholarship between 1889 and 1890. During this time In his final summer of study, he assisted (together with Michael Murphy) in a special summer course led by Edouard Lanteri to train fifty teachers from art schools around Britain in clay modelling. The report written by Felix Martin Miller (who was Provisional Superintendent of the class) on 13 August 1888 said that 'Messrs. M. Murphy and E. Fabian, two of the most efficient students of the modelling class...were retained to instruct the class the way [sic] to construct the interior framework necessary to support a clay figure (as many had never modelled before), and to assist in teaching on the alternate days of Mr. Lanteri's attendance.'

Ernest lived in London with his brothers and sisters around 1891 when he was working as an assistant to Mr. Simpson. He moved to Bristol c.1892 and became the modelling master at the Municipal School of Art in Bristol. Fabian is said to have held this post for thirty-seven years until 1929, when ill health forced him to resign.

He exhibited regularly at the Royal West of England Academy and executed a number of commissions. These included a number of works for Bristol Cathedral, and a bronze model of Ernest Board's 'Sailing of Cabot' for the gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. According to the Western Daily Press, Friday 19 June 1925 he was the designer and modeller of 'The Nine Muses' situated above the Queen's Road entrance to the Wills Memorial Tower, University of Bristol. This was a collaboration with the sculptor, George A. Giblett of Sydenham Road, Knowle, who was a student of Fabian's at Bristol Municipal School of Art.

Fabian was a long-standing member of the Bristol Savages, an artists' club, which was founded in 1894 by Ernest Ehlers and still continues. He was elected a life member in 1912. Fabian gave the tribe several works, including the President's Chain of Office, a statuette of a rugby player, the Savages' Golf Trophy and a classically designed plaque for the Bongie Portfolio. In April 1931 he died in Bristol after a long illness.

On Saturday 18 December 1886, the 'Hampshire Advertiser' carried the following article about Fabian's early career entitled 'Success of a Townsman at South Kensington':

'With very much pleasure we notice the onward and upward course in art of our young townsman, Mr Ernest Fabian, son of our respected fellow citizen, Mr J Fabian. With a love of artistic pursuits and an energy which assures success, he has profited by the instruction of our local School of Art [Winchester], under its able chief, Mr Roberts, and under wood carving, that clever local Gibbons, Mr Thomas. Mr Fabian gained a good foundation, and gave an earnest of success in several good works in wood, and a charming bust of one of his sisters, in plaster, in which he has caught the natural attractions and expressions of the "model". Proceeding to that university of art, South Kensington, he has now matriculated in honours, having gained a free studentship over five other competitors in a six days competition of modelling from a classical subject, viz "The head of the laughing Faun", one of the choicest treasures of the Townley collection in the British Museum. This humorous and grotesque demi-god is reproduced by Mr Fabian with remarkable faithfulness, and although the head only is the "study", we can imagine the joyous figure in its tiger-skin dress and its mouth-organ or Pandean pipe in its hand ready to "tune up". The hearty laughter, the strongly-marked features, and the details, both anatomically and grotesque, of the face, forehead and neck, and the life-like expression, are reproduced in clay with the artistic ability and happy effect, and well deserve the honour gained by our young artist, whose work, both as to his sister’s bust, and that of the Faun, are on view at Mr Fabian’s artistic shop. His son has carved many examples of good work in that art which is so great an attraction at Chatsworth, and his ink dish and stand, purchased by Mr C. Wooldridge, is a recent success in the art of Gibbons and other wood artists. This article consists of a square base, resting on supports. In the angles of the upper surface are beautifully carved the mitre of the bishop, the two "W’s" of William of Wykeham, the loops of the letters formed like the crook of the pastoral staff of the bishop. They are the arms of Wykeham and those of the see of Winton. The minor details of the design are beautifully worked out by the chisel and lathe, and the oak, cut from a Cathedral beam some centuries old is essentially "a thing of beauty" and so is the metal dish for the ink. This is in wrought iron, with a Tudor Rose on its lid, and with entwined serpents, typical of the wisdom of a man of law. Mr Fabian is at home evidently, whether he works in clay, wood or metal, and we may hop all three materials may turn to gold in his hands, guided by his artistic talent.'


This entry includes information provided by Alison Fabian, who submitted the article from the 'Hampshire Advertiser' and drew attention to the details of Fabian's career by Cecil Broome on the Bristol Savages website: http://www.bristol-savages.org/past-artists/47.html (accessed 13 February 2013). The details of the class held in 1888 comes from the 36th Annual Report of the Department of Science and Art, 1889, p. 211.

Wealth at death: £2,913 15s. 6d.
Probate date: 6 May 1931

Citing this record

'Ernest Fuller Fabian RWA', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib1_1218544477, accessed 26 Sep 2023]

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