Edith Elizabeth Jukes FRBS (1910-2006) was always known as Beth. She became an Associate member of the Society in 1948 and then a Fellow in 1961. Jukes studied at the Royal College of Art between 1929 and 1933 and was awarded an Associateship (ARCA) in Sculpture. She studied under Herbert Palliser FRBS, Henry Moore and Richard Garbe HFRBS, with who she maintained a professional connection with, as he (along with Richard Garbe HFRBS) later nominated her for Associate Membership in 1948.
During the Second World War Jukes helped with evacuees in Scotland. Upon returning to London, she followed her doctor father into the medical profession by training at Barts Hospital in London, becoming a state registered nurse in 1945. From 1946, she taught sculpture at Sir John Cass School of Art, working there until her retirement in1975 and pursuing her own practise at evenings and weekends in her studio in Chelsea. Jukes continued her sculpture until she was in her seventies.
She regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy and, from the 1950s, at the Society of Portrait Sculptors. Initially, Jukes carved in wood and stone, and much of her later work was in clay. She produced portrait heads as well as abstract works. She described how she liked to work: “I’d like to do most subjects twice. First for reality, and then again, but more modern, simpler and with large, easy shapes and forms”.
