Sculpture Gallery

Watts only began to seriously turn to sculpture when he was in his fifties and safely established as a subject painter and portraitist. He never actually trained in sculpture, but as a young boy had studied in the studio of the sculptor William Behnes and was inspired by the naturalism of the anatomy, the grandeur of form and the folds of drapery in the Elgin Marbles housed at the British Museum. He admired their storytelling, as each fragmented part of the marbles relates a story from ancient Greek life and mythology.

Watts believed that the best sculpture showed movement and life, demonstrated in his magnificent artwork Physical Energy, among others in this gallery.