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Notes

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Portal’s body faces the narrow end of the triangle, with one foot advanced to the tip, the other echoing the flat back of the pedestal. He wears a uniform with stripes and other decorations indicated, but an overall painterly texture in the bronze obscures precise details. Portal’s distinctive, hawk-like features are treated more naturalistically but are also subjected to a degree of sculpturesque simplification. His eyes are raised in the direction of the golden eagle on the RAF War Memorial opposite, and to the sky beyond.

Title

Charles Frederick Algernon Portal (1893–1971), Viscount Portal of Hungerford

Date

1972–1975

Medium

bronze & Delabole slate

Measurements

H 275 x W (?) x D (?) cm;
Plinth: H 132 x W (?) x D (?) cm

Accession number

SW1A_TJ_S015

Acquisition method

funded by private subscription

Work type

Statue

Custodian

English Heritage

Work status

extant

Listing status

not listed

Unveiling date

21st May 1975

Access

time restrictions apply

Access note

park opening times apply

Inscription description

MARSHAL OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCES / THE VISCOUNT PORTAL OF HUNGERFORD / K.G. G.C.B. O.M. D.S.O. M.C / 1893 - 1971 / CHIEF OF THE AIR STAFF 1940 - 1945 / ONE OF THE ARCHITECTS OF VICTORY / IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

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Victoria Embankment Gardens, Westminster

SW1A 2JL

Set in the Whitehall stretch of the gardens, in front of the Ministry of Defence building.

Artist or maker

Oscar Nemon

1906–1985

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Charles Frederick Algernon Portal (1893–1971), Viscount Portal of Hungerford
Lord Beaverbrook (1879–1964) Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon
Winston Churchill The Mansion, Bletchley Park
Sir Hugh Allen (1869–1946) Royal College of Music
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery (1887–1976), 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, GCB, DSO
Lord Portal of Hungerford (1893–1971) Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon
Helen Violet Bonham Carter (1887–1969), née Asquith, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury National Portrait Gallery, London
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