Portrait bust of Harry Goodhart-Rendel (1887-1959)
Donald P. Hastings (1900-1938)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1938
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
355 x 190 mm (14 x 7 1/2 in)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Hatchlands Park, Surrey
NT 1166743
Summary
Sculpture, bronze; portrait bust of Harry Goodhart-Rendel (1887-1959); Donald Pierre Hastings (1900-1938); 1938. A bronze portrait bust of the architect and writer Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel, who gave Hatchlands to the National Trust in 1945. Donald Hastings was a short-lived sculptor who specialised in portraits but also made major sculptures in the early 1930s for the church of St Wilfrid in Brighton, for which Goodhart-Rendel was the architect.
Full description
A portrait bust in bronze of Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel, architect, writer and musician, who gave Hatchlands to the National Trust, after having inherited it from his grandfather, Lord Rendel of Hatchlands (Stuart Rendel). Goodhart-Rendel was born plain Goodhart, the only child of Rose Ellen Rendel, the eldest daughter of Lord Rendel (1834–1913) and Harry Chester Goodhart (1858 - 1895); he subsequently added the name Rendel. The bust depicts the sitter looking forwards and slightly to his right, his mouth slightly open, giving the work an alert quality. Below the head are the beginnings of a shirt collar, tie and jacket. Signed and dated on collar at back. Mounted on a turned wood socle with a modern label. Donald Hastings was the son of a sculptor, William Granville Hastings (1868-1902), who in 1892 moved with his family to Providence, Rhode Island to take up the position of designer and sculptor for the Gorham Manufacturing Company, a successful manufacturer of bronzes (see NT 515036). Donald Pierre was the youngest of six children. After his father’s early death at the age of just 34 in 1902, the family returned to London where its members lived in straitened circumstances, the 1911 census recording that the young Donald was living in Watford in the care of the London Orphan Asylum, a charity that cared for children who had lost one or both of their parents. He only decided to become a sculptor later in life and became principally known as a portrait sculptor. His highest-profile exhibition was entited '50 Celebrity Portrait Busts', held at the New Burlington Art Gallery in 1934. As its name suggests, the show consisted of portrait busts of a wide range of celebrities of the day. Some of Hastings' portrait busts were cast in ceramic versions, for example a glazed ceramic bust of a man in the Leeds City Art Galleries. Hastings also made architectural and religious sculpture, one of his first commissions being a series of Stations of the Cross made for St Wilfrid’s Church, Brighton, which was built to the designs of Harry Goodhart-Rendel in the early 1930s, one of the architects masterpieces. In 1932 Donald Hastings carved a moving headstone in Highgate Cemetery commemorating his elder sister Dorothy (1895-1932), who died of complications following an operation on her appendix. Ironically Donald too died six years later at the age of 38 from a botched appendectomy. The fine and incisive portrait of Goodhart-Rendel must be one of Donald Hasting’s very last works, before his premature death. Jeremy Warren May 2023
Provenance
Presumably commissioned by Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel (1887-1959) ; Christie's, London, 7 March 1958, where bought by the Ministry of Works; transferred by HM Treasury to the National Trust in 1958.
Marks and inscriptions
Collar, at back:: D.H. 1938 Label on wooden socle:: H.S. Goodhart-Rendel /by/ Donald P. Hastings (1900-1938)
Makers and roles
Donald P. Hastings (1900-1938), sculptor