Paul Raphael Montford was born in Kentish Town, London on 1 November 1868 and was the son of Horace Montford (1840-1919), a sculptor. He initially trained in his father's studio before studying at Lambeth School of Art in London in 1884-85, and, from 1887, at the Royal Academy Schools in London, where, in 1891, he was awarded a Gold Medal, the Landseer Scholarship, and a travelling scholarship. He subsequently embarked on a career as a sculptor and from c.1907 to 1922 had a studio at Albert Bridge, London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and at the Royal Society of British Artists in London; the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; and at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. He also participated in the International Exhibition in Glasgow in 1901.
He taught sculpture at Chelsea School of Art from 1898-1903.
From the early 1900s to 1919 he received numerous commission, but in the years after World War One work began to dry up and in the search of pastures new he emigrated to Australia in 1923, however, in Australia he found that commissions were initially no no more forthcoming and he returned to teaching. He taught for a period at the Gordon Institute of Technology in Geelong, Victoria, and he gave an influential series of lectures at the Victorian Artists' Society of which he was President in 1930-31.
Montford subsequently produced nearly seventy works following his move to Australia including the exterior sculptural groups at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance (1927); a seated statue of Adam Lindsay Gordon for Spring Street Gardens, Melbourne (1934) which won the gold medal of the Royal Society of British Sculptors; and a statue of John Wesley for Wesley Church in Melbourne.
Montford died in Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria on 15 January 1938.
Text source: Arts + Architecture Profiles from Art History Research net (AHRnet) https://www.arthistoryresearch.net/
