Alexander Munro

Date of birth: 1825 — Date of death: 1871

Sculptor. Son of a Scottish stonemason employed on the Duke of Sutherland's estates, Munro entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1847. He produced portrait busts, reliefs, historical statues and imaginative works such as Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery's Paolo and Francesca (1854, marble). Munro was friendly with many of the Pre-Raphaelite circle including Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) and John Everett Millais (1829-1896). John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a particular admirer of his work and Munro gave classes at the Working Men's College. Munro made some of the portrait statues for the Oxford Museum and a tympanum after a design by Rossetti for the Oxford Union. Munro was often in competition with his contemporary, Thomas Woolner (1825-1892) for the same commissions. According to W. Bell Scott (1811-1890), this resulted in an uneasy relationship between the two and may have been the cause for Munro not being elected to the Hogarth Club in 1858. Munro married Mary Carruthers (1834-1872) in September 1861. He suffered from increasing ill health and spent his winters in the south of France from 1865.