Everyone who met Ophelia Gordon Bell was struck by her. Even if they did not know of her artistic skill, they were witnesses to her great vitality and kindness. And on the day, in 1940, that she and her aura entered William’s studio for the first time, with hair streaming wet from the rain, all William had to do was what any living, breathing bachelor would have done and notice it.
In her later years she made her much loved sculpture studies of shepherds, farmers and climbers, some with their dogs, sheep or lambs and even a portrait of William Wordsworth and one of William and his sister Dorothy. These sculptures were first modelled in clay on an aluminium armature, then cast in plaster and finally cast in cold-cast bronze. Each subject was limited to an edition of twelve to comply with the definition of an original art work, laid down by the Royal Society of British Sculptors.
