Maurice Lambert made several portrait busts, which are considered amongst his finest works. Other sitters include the poet and biographer Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) and the composer Sir William Turner Walton (1902–1983). This bust was exhibited at the Lefevre Gallery, London, in 1932.
Maurice Lambert was born in Paris, the son of the painter and sculptor George Washington Thomas Lambert (1873–1930). He was educated at Manor House School in Clapham, London, and apprenticed to the sculptor Francis Derwent Wood (1871–1926) for five years, from the age of 17.
He used a wide variety of materials for his sculptures including marble, alabaster, African hardwood, Portland stone and metal. Throughout the 1930s Lambert carried out several commissions for ocean liners, including the bronze Oceanides for the first-class foyer of the Queen Elizabeth and large-scale commissions such as a 40 foot high figure for the New York World Fair, representing the Spirit of Britain.
In 1938 Lambert first exhibited at the Royal Academy and was elected an associate member in 1941, exhibiting regularly in the summer exhibitions after the Second World War. He was a master of the Royal Academy sculpture school from 1950 to 1958 and elected a full Royal Academician in 1952. He died of cancer of the colon at Guy’s Hospital, London, aged 63
