Overview

This volume focuses on the public sculpture and monuments in the eight boroughs of outer south and west London. These stretch in a curve from the northernmost borough of Hillingdon, which borders the boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow, to Richmond that straddles the Thames, to the southern boroughs Kingston, Merton, Sutton, and Croydon. Of the 300 public monuments and sculptures detailed, over three quarters were originally commissioned by wealthy royal and aristocratic patrons to adorn their private residencies from the 16th to the 18th century. The wealth of works include architectural reliefs, statues, and garden ornaments such as fountains and urns produced by major metropolitan sculptors. Hampton Court Palace has architectural and garden sculpture by John Van Nost, Gabriel Caius Cibber, Grinling Gibbons and Edward Pierce. Cibber’s Hercules pediment was perhaps Britain’s first monumental pediment sculpture later imitated throughout the country. At Chiswick House Lord Burlington with his supreme knowledge of European sculpture employed Michael Rysbrack, Peter Scheemakers and Giovanni Battista Guelfi. The rise of new patrons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the desire to establish strong local identities resulted in a rich diversity of monuments, obelisks, bridges, fountains and clock towers. Municipal patronage replaced private commissions exemplified by Croydon’s Town Hall, Library and Law Courts with its ambitious programme of decorative and symbolist sculpture emphasizing education, public order and other civic virtues. Education is also the theme of Hamo Thornycroft’s statue of John Colet, the founder of St Paul’s School. Early aviation at Croydon and Heathrow inspired much distinctive public sculpture and more recently prosperous commercial centres within the boroughs include the hundred-acre Stockley Business Park which has provided a wealth of contemporary work by major sculptors such as Stephen Cox, and William Pye, alongside works by Nigel Hall and David Mach commissioned by Kingston in partnership with Kingston University.

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9781846312250

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Reviews

This excellent new book reminder us vividly of the potential of these collaborations, as it comprehensively surveys the public sculpture in outer south and west London. The cheerful fusion of architecture and sculpture is the main theme of this work. The books are well produced, in a large accessible format and are fully illustrated and researched. -- Benedict O'Looney The Victorian Magazine 201207

This excellent new book reminder us vividly of the potential of these collaborations, as it comprehensively surveys the public sculpture in outer south and west London. The cheerful fusion of architecture and sculpture is the main theme of this work. The books are well produced, in a large accessible format and are fully illustrated and researched.

Author Information

Professor Fran Lloyd, Professor of Art History & Associate Dean Research & Enterprise, Faculty of art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University. She is a representative of visual culture on the Arts and Humanities Research Council/Economic and Social Research Council Religion and Society Panel and is a Fellow of the Society of Arts. Director of the Visual and Material Culture Research Centre at Kingston University, Professor Lloyd has recently published widely on contemporary visual culture and feminist art practice. Publications include Consuming Bodies: Sex and Consumerism in Contemporary Japanese Art (Reaktion, 2003), and the co-edited catalogue of Sex and Consumerism, Contemporary Art in Japan (University of Brighton, 2001) which accompanied the major touring exhibition that focused on the resurgence of the imaging of sex and consumerism through the work of eight contemporary artists in Japan. Other publications arising from exhibition projects include Contemporary Arab Women's Art: Dialogues of the Present (Women’s Art Library and I. B. Tauris, 1999), Displacement and Difference: Contemporary Arab Visual Culture in the Diaspora (Saffron, 2000), and From the Interior: Female Perspectives on Figuration (1999). She has also contributed to the Journal of Visual Culture in Britain (2001), the Journal of Algerian Studies (2001), and Feminist Visual Culture: An Introduction, edited by Carson and Pajaczkowska (2000). Most recently she has contributed to the first monographic study of Dora Gordine (Dora Gordine: Sculptor, Artist, Designer, Philip Wilson, 2007). Helen Potkin is Principal Lecturer in Art History at Kingston University & Course Director for three undergraduate courses in the School of Art & Design History Davina Thackara is a writer, researcher and editor specialising in modern and contemporary art with a particular interest in sculpture and interdisciplinary fields such as art and architecture and art and science. She also worked for many years as a lecturer in art history in the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture at Kingston University, London.

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