Oscar Nemon (1906-1985), outstanding sculptor and medallist, was born in Croatian town Osijek, and has Jewish roots (Oscar Neumann). Having obtained his baccalaureate in Osijek, in 1923 he moved to Vienna. He was inspired and supported by Ivan Mestrovic, a great Croatian sculptor.

In 1931 Nemon made a portrait of Sigmund Freud in person, for which Freud said to be “…a very good and astonishingly lifelike impression of me”. After a short stay in Paris, having obtained bursary from his native city of Osijek, he went to Brussels in 1925, to study at the Academie des Beaux Arts. He stayed in touch with Osijek, and made for the city the monument “June Victims”, commemorating the murder three Croatian members in the ex-Yugoslav Parliamnet in Belgrade in 1928, among them Stjepan Radic. In Burssels he made busts of King Albert I, Queen Astrid, and Auguste Vermeylen, a notable historian of the Flemish School of Painting.

Oscar Nemon portraying Sigmund Freud in 1931, source

In 1938, due to the Nazi invasion of Belgium, he fled to England, and lived in Oxford. During the WWII a larger part of his family perished in the Holocaust, including his mother and brother. In subsequent years he made sculptures of many distinguished persons, like Winston Churchil (in 1965, upon the invitation of the British Government, and on the occasion of his death), Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Mother (upon her request), Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Viscount Montgomery (of Alamein), Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher, etc. It is interesting that Winston Churchil in return made his amateur sculpture of Oscar Nemon.

His obsession was an architectural utopian project of Universal Center of Ethics, and in this respect he seems to be similar to his compatriot Kristian Krekovic. It is little know that Nemon portrayed Kristian Krekovic, a famous Croatian painter:

In 1981 he made a bronze relief for Canterbury Cathedral. His last major work was a National Air Force Memorial for the city of Toronto, Canada, unveiled by The Queen in Toronto in 1984.

For his exceptional achievements the University of St. Andrews in 1977 conferred Oscar Nemon an Honorary Doctorate of Letters. On the occasion of his death, a memorial retrospective exhibition of his works was organized in 1985 in Croatia, in his native city of Osijek.

Oscar Nemon’s sculpture of Churchill and Churchill’s sculpture of Nemon. 
They sculptured each other simultaneously.
Source oscarnemon.org.uk

Some web pages wrongly indicate that Nemon was born in (ex) Yugoslavia, which at that time did not exist. Nemon was born in Croatia, then a constituent of Austria-Hungary.

• Dalibor Prancevic: Zanemareni kipar Oscar Nemon, [PDF] (Neglected sculptor Oscar Nemon, in Croatian), Kvartal II – 4, Zagreb, 2005., pp 10-14.
• Branko Franolic: Oscar Nemon (1906-1985), Croatian sculptor in Britain, Croatian Times (Omaha, Nebraska, USA), Issue 15, March 1997