Edward Alfred Briscoe Drury was a British architectural sculptor and artist active in the New Sculpture movement. During a long career Drury created a great number of decorative figures such as busts and statuettes plus larger monuments, war memorials, statues of royalty and architectural pieces. During the opening years of the 20th-century he was among the foremost architectural sculptors active in Britain and in that period created the series of works in central London for which he is perhaps now best known. These include the figures on the Old War Office building in Whitehall, elements of the facade of the Victoria and Albert Museum and four of the colossal statues on Vauxhall Bridge.
The Age of Innocence, c. 1900
Life-size bronze version of Circe in Leeds City Museum
Griselda, c. 1897
Blackwall Tunnel plaque (1897)
New Sculpture was a movement in late 19th-century British sculpture with an emphasis on naturalistic poses and spiritual subjects. The movement was characterised by the production of free-standing statues and statuettes of 'ideal' figures from poetry or mythology. These figures were usually in bronze but a mixture of materials, such as ivory and gem stones, to give a polychromic effect, were also used. "New Sculpture" is most closely associated with the period from 1880 to 1910, although some artists continued to work in the style much further into the 20th-century.
Alfred Gilbert's Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in Piccadilly Circus, London, is one of the best-known examples of the New Sculpture.