James Napier was born in Winchester in 1972 and was educated at Bedales School, before studying art at Central St Martins and then architecture at Kingston University. James initially worked as an architect in London, but quickly realised this was not his calling and decided to pursue a career in sculpture.

Unable to find a traditional art training in London, James moved to Florence, to study sculpture and painting. After three years, he returned to England, worked for the sculptor Nick Green and gained experience working in a number of foundries. James tries to keep his approach to sculpture ‘free’ which helps him capture the movement and grace of the subject matter, and a desire to cross his classical style from Italy with a modern attitude gained through architecture.

He recently had the pleasure of showing his work at Bedales’ Past and Present Exhibition, where he exhibited his sculpture of The Abandoned Soldier which was erected in Trafalgar Square in May 2007, highlighting the plight of injured British Service personnel. The work was originally commissioned for the BBC 2 documentary series Power to the People and also formed the centre-piece of a debate on BBC’s Newsnight. In the course of his somewhat idiosyncratic artistic journey, James could not fail to note the contrast between the high quality of teaching and facilities at Bedales and the lack of quality teaching in the English art schools he attended. Over the years, he resolved if he could do anything about it, he would get involved. Eventually, his desire and that of like-minded artists to pass on their knowledge of the sight-size method and the continuing demand from students for a structured approach led them to conclude that the only means of addressing the problem would be to return to first principles and found an art school in London.