Sir Alfred Gilbert (12 August 1854 – 4 November 1934) was an English sculptor and goldsmith who enthusiastically experimented with metallurgical innovations. He was a central — if idiosyncratic — participant in the New Sculpture movement that invigorated sculpture in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century.

Life

Alfred Gilbert's parents, Charlotte Cole and Alfred Gilbert, were musicians who lived at 13 Berners Street, London, where Alfred was born. He spent seven years at Aldenham School in Hertfordshire but received his artistic education mainly in Paris (Ecole des Beaux-Arts, under Jules Cavelier), and studied in Rome and Florence where the significance of the Renaissance made a lasting impression upon him and his art. He also worked in the studio of Sir Joseph Boehm, R.A.

On 3 January 1876 he married his first cousin, Alice Jane Gilbert (1847–1916), with whom he had eloped to Paris. They had five children. Bankruptcy made him flee from Britain in 1901 and for the next 25 years he settled in Bruges. His wife left him in 1904. They never divorced, but lived separated, Alice being a patient in a mental hospital.