Sculpture and Statues

Eros

The Angel of Christian Charity was a name proposed at one time for		Eros
Eros was originally supposed to represent (Eros's brother)		Anteros
Sculptor of Eros		Sir Alfred Gilbert
Eros forms part of a memorial to (19th century campaigner against child labour)		Lord Shaftesbury
Eros was one of the first statues to be made of		Aluminium

The Fourth Plinth

London's Trafalgar Square was originally going to be called King William IV's Square. It has a large plinth in each corner, and the one in the north–west corner was originally intended to hold an equestrian statue of William IV. But when the square was completed, in 1845, there were no funds for the statue. The plinth remained empty until 1999, when the Royal Society commissioned a series of three contemporary sculptures to be displayed temporarily on it:

Dates		Title	Artist	Description
1999		Ecce Homo	Mark Wallinger	A life–size (i.e. quite small) statue of Jesus, wearing only a loincloth and a crown of barbed wire
2000		Regardless of History	Bill Woodrow	A head crushed between a book and the roots of a giant tree
2001		Monument	Rachel Whiteread	A cast of the plinth in transparent resin, placed upside–down on top of the original

A subsequent enquiry recommended a rolling programme of temporary artworks.

2005–7		Alison Lapper Pregnant	Marc Quinn	A marble torso–bust of the artist, who was born with no arms and shortened legs
2007		Model for a Hotel 2007	Thomas Schütte	Architectural model of a 21–storey building, made from coloured glass
2009		One & Other	Anthony Gormley	2,400 selected members of the public, each spending one hour on the plinth – a total of 100 days
2010–12		Nelson's Ship in a Bottle	Yinka Shonibare	A replica of HMS Victory, with sails made of printed fabric in a colourful African pattern, inside a large glass bottle stopped with a cork
2012–13		Powerless Structures, Fig. 101	Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset	A bronze sculpture of a boy on a rocking horse
2013–15		Hahn/Cock	Katharina Fritsch	A blue cockerel
2015–16		Gift Horse	Hans Haacke	The skeleton of a horse – based on an engraving by Stubbs, in The Anatomy of the Horse (1766) – with an electronic ribbon tied to its front leg, displaying live the ticker of the London Stock Exchange – "completing the link between power, money and history"
2016–18		Really Good	David Shrigley	A bronze sculpture of a human hand in a thumbs–up gesture, with the thumb greatly elongated
2018–20		The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist	Michael Rakowitz	A recreation of a sculpture of a lamassu (a winged bull and protective deity) that stood at the entrance to Nergal Gate of Nineveh from 700 BC. It was destroyed in 2015 by Isis, along with other artefacts in the Mosul Museum. Rakowitz's recreation was made of empty Iraqi date syrup cans, representing the destruction of the country's date industry
2020–22		The End	Heather Phillipson	A huge dollop of whipped cream with a cherry on top, adorned with a fly and a drone. The drone films passers–by and displays them on an attached screen. The work is a comment on the result of the UK's EU referendum and the election of Donald Trump as US President. The chairman of the Fourth Plinth commissioning group said that it "expresses something of the fraught times that we're currently living through"
2022–24		Antelope	Samson Kambalu	Celebrating the Malawian pastor, educator and anti–colonial revolutionary John Chilembwe (1871–1915) – whose name means Antelope. Reproduces a photograph taken in 1914 of Chilembwe and British missionary John Chorley, but with Chilembwe much the bigger of the two
2024		850 Improntas	Teresa Margolles	'Life masks' of 850 trans people from London and around the world – arranged in the form of a tzompantli (a skull rack from Mesoamerican civilisations)

There is a widely–held belief that the long–term plan is for the plinth to hold an equestrian statue of Queen Elizabeth II, after her death; but this has never officially been either confirmed or denied.

The Statue of Liberty

Presented by the people of France to the people of America on the centenary of the Declaration of Independence		Statue of Liberty
According to the official title of the statue, Liberty is		Enlightening the World
Sculptor of the Statue of Liberty		Frederic August Bartholdi
His first choice as engineer – French architect and engineer, who died early in the planning stage		Eugéne Viollet–le–Duc
Took over as Chief Engineer, following the death of the above		Gustave Eiffel
Liberty holds in her right hand		A flaming torch
... and in her left hand		A book (of laws)
Inscribed on the book		July IV MDCCLXXVI
The 'skin' of the statue (i.e. the outermost, visible layer) is made from		Copper

Mount Rushmore

The Mount Rushmore National Memorial was the brainchild of Doane Robinson, the aging superintendent of the South Dakota State Historical Society, whose vision was to put South Dakota "on the map" and bring tourists to the region. He envisaged that the memorial should depict "western heroes" such as Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Buffalo Bill Cody and Native American chief Red Cloud. Having enlisted the help and support of Senator Peter Norbeck, Robinson contacted the prolific sculptor Gutzon Borglum – who readily agreed to undertake the project, but insisted that the subjects should be US national heroes rather than regional heroes of the mid–west. He personally chose the presidents that he depicted, who were (from left to right, as you look at the monument):

George Washington

Thomas Jefferson

Theodore Roosevelt

Abraham Lincoln

Construction began in 1927; the presidents' faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. After Gutzon Borglum died in March 1941, his son Lincoln took over as leader of the construction project. Each president was originally supposed to be depicted from head to waist, but lack of funding forced construction to end on 31 October 1941.

The faces are about 60 feet high.

The only one wearing spectacles		Roosevelt
The only one with a beard		Lincoln
The only one with a moustache		Roosevelt

According to Wikipedia, Mount Rushmore is "sometimes referred to as the 'Shrine of Democracy'". It cites two examples; one of them bears the headline "Thousands Celebrate at the Shrine of Democracy", but doesn't use the term anywhere else in its text, while the other refers to the memorial as "America's Shrine of Democracy".

I can take "America's Shrine of Democracy", but "the Shrine of Democracy" (my italics) is, for me, a bit much. I can understand Americans being sceptical about democracy in Great Britain, having fought a war to free themselves from British rule – even though our Parliament had been going for well over 500 years by that time (and its predecessor, sometimes referred to as the Witan, was established some 500 years earlier). But have they never heard of Ancient Greece – which is, after all, where the word itself was first coined?

Rodin

The Age of Bronze (1877, a male nude) was the first major sculpture by		Auguste Rodin
The Kiss (1802), The Burghers of Calais (1884–9), The Thinker (1904)		Auguste Rodin
The Thinker and The Kiss were conceived as part of (a massive work, inspired by a classic work of literature, which was never completed)		The Gates of Hell
The headstone on Rodin's grave is a replica of		The Thinker

Other Sculptors

Statue of Nelson, on top of the column in Trafalgar Square		Edward Hodges Baily
The Rape of Proserpina (1621–2), Apollo and Daphne (1622–5), David (1623–4) – all in the Galleria Borghese, Rome); Ecstasy of St. Teresa (1647–52, in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome)		Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Mount Rushmore monument		Gutzon Borglum
The Three Graces		Antonio Canova
English 'modernist' sculptor, 1924–2013: started as an assistant to Henry Moore; works often included 'found' industrial objects; described as the greatest British sculptor of his generation, and one of the greatest sculptors in the second half of the twentieth century		Sir Anthony Caro
The Lobster Telephone		Salvador Dali
Bronze David, now in the Bargello, Florence; the first nude statue since ancient times, and the first major work of Renaissance sculpture		Donatello
Genesis (1931), Adam (1939), Lucifer (1945); Oscar Wilde's tomb (in Père Lachaise), featuring a winged sphinx; St. Michael and the Devil, on the outer wall of Coventry Cathedral		Sir Jacob Epstein
The Little Mermaid (memorial to Hans Christian Andersen)		Edvard Ericsson
Peter Pan (Kensington Gardens)		Sir George Frampton
Became noted in the 1960s for her horses and riders and oversized human heads		Dame Elizabeth Frink
Swiss sculptor, 1901–66: L'homme qui marche I (The Walking Man I, 1961 – depicted on the Swiss 100 euro note) sold in 2009 for £65 million – a record for a sculpture sold at auction		Alberto Giacometti
Prospero and Ariel (over the entrance to the BBC's Broadcasting House)		Eric Gill
The East Wind, The West Wind
Angel of the North, Another Place		Antony Gormley
A Conversation with Oscar Wilde (1988 – Charing Cross, London) – a sarcophagus, with Wilde emerging from it, which members of the public can use as a bench		Maggi Hambling
Scallop (2003) a memorial to Benjamin Britten, on the beach at Aldeburgh, Suffolk
A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft (2020 – Newington Green, north London) – depicting a nude female figure – described as an everywoman – emerging out of what the BBC described as "a swirling mingle of female forms")
Born Wakefield 1903, met Henry Moore at Leeds School of Art (he was a major influence on her); died in a fire at her studio in St. Ives in 1975		Barbara Hepworth
Statues of John Betjeman on St. Pancras Station, Philip Larkin on Hull Paragon Station, and George Orwell outside BBC Broadcasting House (unveiled in 2007, 2010 and 2017 respectively)		Martin Jennings
Sky Mirror (Nottingham, 2001 – a larger version was installed at the Rockefeller Center in New York, in 2006)		Anish Kapoor
Cloud Gate (Chicago, 2006 – a highly polished steel structure, nicknamed "the Bean" because of its shape)
The ArcelorMittal Orbit, in London's Olympic Park – Britain's largest piece of public art, intended as a permanent legacy of the city's hosting of the 2012 Summer Games
Trafalgar Square lions ("guarding" Nelson's Column)		Sir Edwin Landseer
Medici Tombs, Florence		Michelangelo
Reclining figure (1951 – also another of the same title, 1978/9, stolen 2005)		Sir Henry Moore
Was paid half a sixpence for his sculpture of Eleanor Rigby (a tribute to the Beatles) in Liverpool		Tommy Steele
Boy with a dolphin (beside the Thames in London); Guy the Gorilla (Crystal Palace); Horse and rider (Sheffield)		David Wynn

Subjects

Some of these are fictional characters.

Commemorated by a statue at St. Pancras Station, which he successfully campaigned to save in the 1960s (he died in 1984; statue erected in 2007 as part of the station's refurbishment)		John Betjeman
Two "iconic Liverpool characters", represented in Tom Murphy's Chance Meeting, on Lime Street Station – unveiled in 2009		Bessie Braddock
		Ken Dodd
Commemorated by statues at Temple (London), Paddington station, Bristol, Saltash (Cornwall), Swindon, Milford Haven, Neyland (Pembrokeshire) – as well as at the university that's named after him!		Isambard Kingdom Brunel
English poet, subject of a statue in the gardens of the Villa Borghese, Rome – a copy of one at Trinity College, Cambridge, by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen		Lord Byron
Subject of a statue by John Doubleday, erected in London's Leicester Square in 1981 (three years after his death, on what would have been his 92nd birthday)		Charlie Chaplin
Equestrian statue on the site of the original Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross, facing down Whitehall		Charles I
Stands on a 200–foot (60 metre) column at the lower (seaward) end of Las Ramblas, Barcelona – erected in 1888		Christopher Columbus
American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began work in 1948 on a monument to (Native American leader)		Crazy Horse
"Moderate suffragist" in whose honour a statue was unveiled in Parliament Square by Theresa May in 2018, to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act (which gave votes to women for the first time in the UK)		Dame Millicent Fawcett
Twin giants depicted by statues on the Guildhall, London		Gog and Magog
Subject of a statue unveiled in 2001 in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to the harbour in Bristol – his home city (Hollywood legend)		Cary Grant
Subject of the monument that gives its name to Monument station on the Tyne & Wear Metro, and the surrounding area (Prime Minister 1830–4)		2nd Earl Grey
Memorial in Old Square, Birmingham, erected 1996		Tony Hancock
WWII commander – controversial statue unveiled in London, 1992		Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris
Suffragist and former mill worker, subject of a statue unveiled in Oldham in December 2018		Annie Kenney
Commemorated by a statue on Hull Paragon railway station, unveiled in 2010 on the 25th anniversary of his death		Philip Larkin
Popular sitcom character whose likeness sits on a bench overlooking the Little Ouse river in Thetford, Norfolk – where many of the outdoor scenes from the series in which he featured were shot		Captain Mainwaring
Famous weathervane at Lord's Cricket Ground (donated in 1926 by Herbert Baker, the architect of the Grandstand)		Old Father Time
Fictional subject of a famous statue by George Frampton, in Kensington Gardens – commissioned in 1912 by his original creator (there are six other casts around the world, including one in Sefton Park, Liverpool)		Peter Pan
Commemorated in 2017 by a statue outside the newly extended and refurbished Broadcasting House, where he worked during World War II		George Orwell
Chosen by public vote to be only the second woman honoured by a statue in Manchester (after Queen Victoria): the statue was unveiled in St. Peter's Square in December 2018		Emmeline Pankhurst
Equestrian statue outside the House of Lords, Westminster		Richard I
The centrepiece of London's Leicester Square, since the square's refurbishment in 1874, is a statue (by Giovanni Fontana, based on Peter Scheemakers's 1740 monument in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey) of		William Shakespeare
Commemorated since 2001 by a statue sitting on a bench in Sackville Gardens, near Manchester's gay village		Alan Turing
No woman has more monuments erected in her honour around the world, than		The Virgin Mary
Statue at Llandudno commemorating Lewis Carroll		White Rabbit
Commemorated by a statue, unveiled by Tony Blair in 1999, outside the railway station in Huddersfield (his home town)		Harold Wilson

Places

English town, whose contribution to the development of railways is commemorated by David Mach's Train – a life–sized brick sculpture of a steam locomotive emerging from a tunnel, built in 1997		Darlington
Statues of Desperate Dan (from The Dandy) and Minnie the Minx (from The Beano) can be seen in (British city)		Dundee
A statue of the cartoon character Andy Capp was erected in 2007 in (his home town, in the north of England)		Hartlepool
English town where a large steel feather (designed to sway in the wind) was erected in 2007 to mark the centre of Sherwood Forest		Mansfield
Christ of Corcovado overlooks		Rio de Janeiro
Canova's The Three Graces is in the National Gallery of		Scotland
English town (Stan Laurel's birthplace) where a statue of Laurel & Hardy was unveiled by Ken Dodd in 2009		Ulverston

Titles

Antony Gormley's 100 cast iron figures, facing towards the sea on Crosby Beach, Merseyside (since 2005)		Another Place
Sculpture designed by Thomas Heatherwick, erected outside the City of Manchester Stadium in 2002 to mark the Commonwealth Games; dismantled in 2009, subsequently partly sold for scrap. Name comes from a quotation by Linford Christie		B of the Bang
Controversial piece of "public art" on an old slag heap near St. Helens, Merseyside (overlooking the M62) – by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa		Dream
Popular name for the Shaftesbury Memorial, in central London (for more details, including the answer, see above)		Eros
Statue atop the dome of the Capitol building, Washington DC		Freedom
Creatures from Celtic folklore, represented by two gigantic horses' heads in a public art sculpture at Grangemouth, near Falkirk, Scotland, opened to the public in 2014		Kelpies
At the junction of Rue de l'Étuve and Eikstraat, Brussels		Mannequin Pis
Overlooking Volgograd (f.k.a. Stalingrad: commemorates the 1942–3 Battle of Stalingrad; declared the world's biggest statue in 1967; still the world's largest non–religious statue and the largest statue of a woman		The Motherland Calls
Michelangelo masterpiece (sculpture) in St. Peter's, Rome – attacked and damaged in 1972 by a mentally disturbed geologist (name is a standard term for a representation of the body of Jesus cradled by the Virgin Mary)		Pietà
Giant mechanical spider (French–designed) associated with Liverpool's status as European capital of Culture 2008		La Princesse
20–metre high sculpture of a pregnant woman ("the Bump on the Beach"), loaned for 20 years to the town of Ilfracombe, Devon, in 2012, by Damien Hurst		Verity

Other

Albert Memorial (Kensington Gore): Albert is reading			Catalogue of the Great Exhibition
Most famous exhibit in the Galleria dell'Accademia (Gallery of the Academy), Florence			Michelangelo's David
Justice	Left hand		Scales (of Justice)
	Right hand		Sword (of Justice)

© Haydn Thompson 2017–24