A bronze statuette of Cliff Porter, captain of the 1924 All Black Invincibles, made by Vincent Evans ARCA, Art Master at Wanganui Technical College, was to be New Zealand’s entry in the Sculpture section of the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, the 9th Olympiad of the modern era. It disappeared.
It was first shown in February 1926 when the Wanganui Chronicle told its readers,
“A unique statuette of an All Black, in the act of passing the ball, is to be seen at the Wanganui Technical College. The statuette was made by Mr Vincent Evans, A.R.C.A., Arts Master of the College.”
Evans was a Welshman (ie, rugby mad) and I suppose he made it in 1925 after the triumphant return of the Invincibles in March.
The October 1927 minutes of the Council of the NZ Olympic Association note that the Regulations for the 9th Olympiade had been forwarded to V. Evans.
The Council’s January 28 minutes record that the Secretary had accepted the statuette and the Committee had approved the secretary’s doing so; a newspaper report from that meeting (Evening Post 17 January 1928 page 14) tells us,
“The meeting also noted that Vincent Evans, of the Wanganui Technical School, had forwarded an exhibit for the art section of the games, his entry taking the form of a bronze statuette of an All Black. His entry was the first of its kind from New Zealand.”
In May 1928 the Wanganui Chronicle announced,
“In the art section of the forthcoming Olympic exhibition at Amsterdam during the progress of the international games, a statuette by Mr Vincent Evans, Wanganui Technical College art master, will occupy a prominent position.
“Mr Evans’ model—that of a Rugby player—was dedicated to the 1924 New Zealand All Blacks, and the New Zealand Olympic Games Committee, the Chronicle was told yesterday, have been responsible for the forwarding of the statuette, to Holland.
“The model in question is fully symbolical of the virility of sport and is especially appropriate for exhibition during the struggle for world supremacy in athletics.”
A hundred and seventy-five statuettes were entered in the Olympic event and the All Black did not attain a podium finish. The gold medal went to Paul Landowski from France for his Boxeur (one of his later works is the colossal Cristo Redentor in Rio), the silver medal to Swiss artist Milo Martin for his Athlète au repos; the German Renée Sintenis took the bronze for her statue Fußballer.
The International Olympic Committee has no record of the statuette arriving nor even of its formal entry in the competition. There is no further mention of it in the New Zealand Olympic Committee records of the time, nothing in the newspapers, Whanganui records, or the family papers.
Vincent Evans, painter, printmaker, sculptor and teacher, was born in Ystalyfera, Glamorgan, South Wales. He worked for a time in the coal mines but left to study at Swansea School of Art and at the Royal College of Art in London. In 1924 he was appointed art teacher at the Wanganui Technical College. He exhibited portraits in oil and bronze, etchings and other prints—at the Sarjeant gallery and at the College.
In December 1931 he left New Zealand for England, where he worked as a portrait painter in Chelsea and painted working men in the coal mines. In 1934 he exhibited a huge religious painting at the Welsh National Eisteddfod and in 1936 two large paintings of underground workers at the Royal Academy. The War Artists’ Advisory Committee accepted several of his works. He was art master at Slough Grammar School and College until 1968. None of these has any knowledge of the sculpture.
Evans has been the subject of a Masters thesis by David Lloyd George at Aberystwyth university and his paintings of working men are much sought after – a kind of Welsh Diego Rivera.
Evans’s statuette has disappeared. So what happened to this important piece of Olympic and All Black history?
There is no sign of it in Whanganui institutional collections; it is not at the NZ Sports Hall of Fame in Dunedin or at the Rugby Museums in Palmerston North or Twickenham. Did it go back to Britain with Evans when he left New Zealand in 1931? Or was it stolen and broken up for its valuable bronze?
Obviously either Evans or the Olympic committee changed their mind. Perhaps it still exists in a private collection, or is buried away in a rugby archive somewhere.
The All Black is New Zealand’s lost Olympian.
(See Vincent Evans’s paintings at https://minerartist.tumblr.com/ and at Art UK | Discover Artworks).