Introduction

According to the Mapping Sculpture site, Stabler, a sculptor, modeller, potter's modeller, and black-and-white illustrator for important arts magazines, such as The Studio and Burlington Magazine, was “born in West Bromwich. . . the daughter of James McLeish (born c.1849), a boiler inspector for insurance company. . . . [She] studied at the School of Architecture and Applied Art, University College, Liverpool (1901-4) and at the Royal College of Art.” After marrying Harold Stabler, a silversmith, in 1906, she designed and created pottery figures, some of which her husband manufactured in Hammersmith. “After the First World War she made designs for the Ashtead Pottery and the firm Carter, Stabler, Adams (later the Poole Pottery) in which Harold was a partner. Phoebe and Harold collaborated on a number of projects in ceramics, of which the war memorial at Durban is the most striking example.”

Although Stabler is best known for her pottery figures, during the 1920s and 1930s she was also well known for her stone carvings and was an important contributor to the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, 1924. For their stand at the exhibition, the Concrete Utilities Bureau (London) engaged Stabler to make work demonstrating the sculptural properties of concrete. Other artists also engaged on the project were Gilbert Bayes.

Works in Bronze

Works in Marble

Works in Ceramics

Bibliography

Phoebe Gertrude Stabler ARBS.” Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951. University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011. Web. 29 September 2011.


Last modified 14 November 2016