Marian Montford Paul Montford, Esq

This portrait by London-born artist Marian Alice Montford (nee Dibdin, 1882-1969) depicts her husband, British sculptor Paul Raphael Montford (1868-1938). Marian and Paul were in Australia from about 1920 until Paul’s death in Melbourne in 1938, at which time Marian returned to England, settling in Sutton in the county of Surrey.

In 1923, Paul Montford won the competition to complete the statuary for the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne and, in October 1932, a statue of British-Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon, carved by Montford, was unveiled near Parliament House, Melbourne, in a garden now known as Gordon Reserve. Montford was also president of the Victorian Artists Society from 1930 to 1932.