Descended from a family of artists and craftsmen, Frederick William Pomeroy (1856-1924) was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to a London-based firm of architectural stone carvers following the death of his father in 1869. He later attended the South London Technical Art School, during which time he was taught by Jules Dalou (1838-1902) whose sculpture and techniques were to shape the young sculptor's direction. Pomeroy was also instructed at the school by W.S. Frith (1850-1924), with whom he collaborated in 1888 on the terracotta Victoria fountain in Glasgow. After his initial training in London Pomeroy visited France and Italy, resulting in inspiration drawn from the technical proficiency of contemporary French practice combined with early Italian Renaissance sculpture - taking from the Renaissance, specifically, what he defined as 'ideas of character, of mind, of individuality'. This European tour prompted Pomeroy to complete and exhibit a youthful statuette of the Florentine painter and architect Giotto at the Royal Academy in 1887 (ref. no. 1828). This work left an impression on his contemporary, Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), who subsequently assigned the carving in marble of his Athlete Wrestling with a Python (1888-1890) to Pomeroy.

Pomeroy was a leading figure in the New Sculpture movement, and yet there is little art-historical literature on his contribution to the movement. His better-known pieces are perhaps his architectural works, which are located on buildings across London and across the rest of the United Kingdom. Yet he complimented this range with several academic-style sculptures such as Dionysus, which he exhibited widely at the Royal Academy. His variation on Leighton's The Sluggard (1885) was met by Edmund Gosse (1849-1928), the champion of the New Sculpture movement, with great acclaim when he described it as 'exquisite', whilst Perseus (1898) remains one of his most well known sculptures in this genre.

This bronze figure of Dionysus (c.1903) depicts the Greek god of wine, ecstasy, pleasure, and theatre who joyfully holds a cup aloft. Known as Bacchus in Roman mythology, in each incarnation this god represents excess and the untamed aspects of the human psyche, within which the fine line between chaos and celebration, revelry and recklessness are balanced. His presence in mythology embodies the moral and ethical challenges faced by society and symbolises the dualities of humanity - happiness and danger, creation and destruction, sanity and madness. Pomeroy exhibited a cast of this sculpture in plaster at the Royal Academy in 1890 which reportedly left its mark on viewers at the time. A slightly earlier and larger cast of this figure is held in The Tate collection, presented by Henry J. Pfungst 1898 (ref no. 1762).

Pomeroy first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885 with his piece Study of a Head (ref no. 2057), and exhibited there every subsequent year until his death in 1924. Pomeroy's work was also regularly shown at the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, The Royal Scottish Academy, as well as at the Royal West of England Academy. Whilst Pomeroy completed smaller sculptures for such exhibitions, he also executed numerous large-scale architectural sculptures including the figure of Lady Justice (1905-1906) and Fortitude, Recording Angel and Truth (1905-1906) which can be located at the Old Bailey, London. His public sculptures are not limited to symbolic figures, extending to the likes of Robert Burns, Oliver Cromwell, Queen Victoria, and Francis Bacon. His work is on display at the Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle; and Pollock House, Glasgow.