solo exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in London in 1930 and another in 1935. He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy. We learn from Durst's Tate Britain Archive papers that when Durst returned to his studies after the 1914-1918 war he was very much drawn to the concept of "Direct Carving" as advocated by Jacob Epstein and Eric Gill. He also states that he was an admirer of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska the French sculptor killed in action in 1915. George Pace, an English architect who worked with Dunst wrote of his philosophical approach towards sculpting: In 1964 when he had finished carving seven statues for the upper part of Peterborough Cathedral he told me that in his early days when he wanted to learn “direct carving” he found that the art schools of the day could only teach him modelling; for it was still the fashion for sculptors to make models which were then translated into stone or marble by technicians using pointers and masons' skills. After World War 1 the more realistic approach to sculpture enabled him to learn the techniques of direct carving and this equipped him to devote the rest of his life to spirited direct carving in stone, wood and ivory. From the summer of 1914 his life ambition was to complete a series of statues carved in the spirit he had extracted from Chartres. He was appointed a member of The British School at Rome in 1945 - Faculty of Sculpture. Gallery See also Holy Cross Church, Woodchurch Notes References External links Biography on the Tate Gallery website from this comprehensive family tree of the reverend William Gibson we learn that Durst carved the tombstones of his sister Margaret Rosa Durst (buried at Whitchurch) and brother William Herbert Durst buried at Magdalen Hill Cemetery in Winchester. A photograph of Alan Durst working on one of his pieces for Peterborough Cathedral Website for Holy Trinity Church in Northwood Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections 1883 births 1970 deaths Military personnel from Hampshire Modern sculptors English sculptors English male sculptors British architectural sculptors 20th-century British sculptors Associates of the Royal Academy Royal Marines personnel of World War I Royal Marines personnel of World War II Royal Marines officers