Oscar Nemon was born in the small market-town of Osijek in Croatia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) on 13 March 1906. He was the elder son of Mavro and Eugenia Nemon, members of the local Jewish community. Oscar was educated at Osijek and developed a talent for draughtsmanship and sculpture. He took his baccalaureate in 1923 and applied to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna and, although unsuccessful in his application, remained in that city for some time and set up his studio there. After working in his uncle’s bronze foundry, he studied sculpture in Paris and in 1925 won a bursary to the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where he was awarded their Gold Medal for sculpture. Exhibitions of his work were held in the Galerie Monteau, Brussels in 1934 and 1939. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Nemon travelled to Great Britain, set up his studio at Boars Hill, Oxford and married Patricia Villiers-Stuart. After the war, the news that his mother, brother and most of his family had perished in the Holocaust had an immensely personal impact on Nemon and resulted in him suffering ‘survivor guilt’. He gravitated increasingly towards sculpting figures of power, most notably Churchill and his circle (following meeting with him in Marrakesh in 1951), which led to a friendship between the two men. Two years later, Nemon was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth II to sculpt a bust of Churchill for the Royal Collection, in honour of that statesman’s impending eightieth year. Churchill sat for Nemon at Chartwell, Downing Street and Chequers. The bust was cast by Nemon’s son in the late 1990s and was presented to the Government Art Collection in 2004. Nemon was granted the rare distinction of a studio at St James’s Palace and his post-war career is best known for a galaxy of distinguished sitters including Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen Mother, Eisenhower, Truman, Montgomery and Macmillan. His bronze busts of Winston Churchill (1955) and Helen Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith (1960) may both be found in the Primary Collection of the National Portrait Gallery. His bronze sculpture of Winston and Clementine Churchill Married Love may be seen on The Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. Nemon’s bust of Lord Beaverbrook may be found in the park in the town square of Newcastle, New Brunswick, Canada. He sculpted Per Ardua ad Astram, the Royal Canadian Air Force Memorial in Toronto, Canada, and the remarkable larger than life-size statues Marshal of the RAF Viscount Portal (1975) on Victoria Embankment and Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery in Whitehall. Nemon’s statue of Sir Winston Churchill striding forth with furrowed brow, stands facing the Dover Patrol Memorial on the white cliffs of Dover. Sir Winston Churchill’s grandson, Winston Churchill, MP, unveiled it on 30 November 1972. Yet another version stands on the village green at Westerham in Kent. It stands on a plinth of Yugoslavian stone, the gift of Marshal Tito. Yet another version stands in Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, Canada. Another bronze statue of Churchill stands in the Members’ Lobby of the House of Commons and it was only installed there after a terrific parliamentary row over the breaking of the ‘ten year-rule’ on commemoration and after correspondence from David Lloyd George’s family who were concerned at Nemon’s statue dwarfing that of the ‘Welsh Wizard’. The problem was resolved by adjusting the size of Churchill’s plinth. The statue has a shiny left foot, it being a tradition for Conservative Members of Parliament making their maiden speech to rub it for good luck. Nemon was particular and could not stand the shiny foot, so he borrowed a skilled patinator from the Art Bronze Foundry in Fulham to dull it down. However, the Parliamentary authorities did like it and they responded by withdrawing his House of Commons Pass. Nemon died in John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford in April 1985. After his death, his coloured bronze relief Danica was presented to the Government by his daughter, Alice Nemon Stuart and it may be found in the Government Art Collection. Nemon had sculpted it in 1947, while mourning the death of his mother and brother in Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp.