Ronald Moody 1900-1984
(Brother of Harold Moody)
Elected to Royal Society of Portrait Sculptors, Member of the Caribbean Artists movement, Musgrave Gold Medal winner. Minority Rights Award winner.
Born in 1900, Ronald Moody came to Britain in 1923 to study dentistry at Kings College Hospital. Although he completed his medical studies and qualified as a dentist, he was inspired by visiting the Egyptian galleries at the British Museum and turned his creative talents to sculpture.
He settled in Paris and exhibited his bronzes and carvings there in 1937 to great acclaim.
When Germany invaded France in 1940, he spent 10 months fleeing the Nazis across France and Northern Europe.
Once back in England, he worked as a dentist for the Public Health Department, and became a worker in London’s Civil Defence Force.
After the war he was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Portrait
Sculptors.
In 1950 he was appointed to the Governing Council of the Royal Society of Portrait Sculptors.
In 1963 he was commissioned by the Jamaican government to produce a sculpture of the Savacou bird of Carib mythology. One of his sculptures now stands in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and has been adopted as a logo by the Caribbean Artists movement, of which he became a member in 1963.