Tag Archives: sculpture

Joining the dots at London’s Liverpool Street

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ELECTRONS ORBIT around the nucleus of an atom in an organised way, so I recall from science lessons I attended many years ago. Whether they are considered as particles or waves, they are located at discrete distances away from the nucleus. They can ‘jump’ between different orbits, but cannot remain between them. This oversimplified scientific knowledge came back to me yesterday (16 July 2026) when I first set eyes on a wonderful outdoor sculpture, “Infinite Accumulation”, by Yayoi Kusama. It stands near to the Liverpool Street station entrance on London’s Elizabeth Line railway.

Like the electrons in their pre-determined discrete orbits around an atom’s nucleus, passengers travelling on a train can only embark or disembark at discrete points, the stations, along the line, but not between them.

Kusama’s sculpture, which at first sight resembled a disorganised version of the Atomium in Brussels, consists of highly polished, curving stainless steel tubes, which are punctuated at intervals by equally shiny spheres.  Although the artist might have intended something different, I interpreted the spheres as representing stations along the route of a railway line (the tubes connecting the reflective balls). Seeing the discrete, separated spheres was what made me think about the atom and is electrons.

My interpretation differs from that on a website (https://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/infiniteaccumulation/)  about the artwork:

“Yayoi Kusama is best known for her use of massed, repeated polka dots, which first emerged in her work in the 1960s and have become one of her signature motifs … For this monumental site-specific work, Kusama has expanded the polka dot into linked forms which interact with and define the public spaces outside the new Elizabeth line entrance to Liverpool Street station. These dynamic serpentine arches were created intuitively by Kusama, hand-twisting the wires on the original models for the artwork … This dynamic, highly reflective architectural form, mirroring the viewer and the world around it, means Infinite Accumulation responds to both individual and collective experience within the changing spaces of the urban landscape of London.”

All this makes sense, but I cannot escape from the idea that the artwork is an abstracted three-dimensional version of a schematic route map for an Underground line.

PS: my apologies are due to any physicists or chemists, who find my scientific knowledge to be too rudimentary.

Larger than life. Traditional yet contemporary.

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INDIA FASCINATES ME. One aspect of this fascination is the ever-present fusion of the present and the past. Almost every Indian I have met embraces at any one moment both unscientific ideas and beliefs, which date back many millennia, and the concepts of today’s world. As the writer Pavan K Varma put it in his book ‘Becoming Indian’:

“The mistake one should never make is to accept the amiable Indian as a monolith. He is a most well-adjusted split personality, capable of living simultaneously and effortlessly on two mutually opposed planes. He can make a quantum leap from one epoch to another without showing any strain.”

This ability to decompartmentalise the past and the present is well exemplified in some artworks I saw at an exhibition organised by Bombay’s Sakshi Gallery, and showing at London’s Mall Gallery until 8 July 2026.

The works to which I am referring are sculptures by Ravinder Reddy, who was born in 1956 at Suryapet, Andhra Pradesh (southern India). Each of his sculptures on display at the Mall Gallery are larger than life sized female heads. Each of them is stunningly attractive and although not completely lifelike, very engaging. They are adorned with what recalls traditional south Indian decoration. They look like traditional images, yet at the same time, there is something contemporary about them. As an article (www.astaguru.com/blogs/legacy-of-artist-ravinder-reddy-influencing-future-generations-257)  by Yungming Wong noted aptly:

“Reddy’s work is a rare phenomenon because it fuses tradition and innovation together … [His] sculptures often contain strikingly modern interpretations of traditional forms … His famous busts, for instance, advance classical portraiture to new heights by super-sizing the heads to monumental proportions. This exaggeration gives the sculptures grandeur and presence and leads the viewers’ eyes to the face that is the ultimate icon of humanity. In this sense, he connects the timelessly traditional approach of portraiture to the contemporary sensitivities for his works to be relevant in their local and global contexts.”

Although the show at the Mall Gallery contains excellent paintings and sculpture by other Indian artists, all of them well worth seeing, it was Reddy’s work that kept engaging my eyes. It was not merely the great size of his works, but their alluring presence, which grabbed my attention. Although products of the present, they suggest age old traditions of southern India. More than anything else on display at the exhibition, Reddy’s artworks exemplified what fascinates me about life in India: it occupies a space in which the past and present overlap, in which one exists inseparable from the other.

A sculpture through which you are invited to walk

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NEXT TO THE 2026 Serpentine Pavilion, a wonderful structure that makes creative use of brickwork, there is another creation, an artwork by Jesus Rafael Soto (born in Venezuela in 1923, and died in 2005). It consists of a rectangular frame filled with a grid of finely spaced rectangles and supported by three pairs of vertical pillars. 4000 identical, 10 metre long, thin, yellow PVC tubes hang down from the frame, almost reaching the ground beneath it.  This work, first made in 1999 and then recreated in 2023, is called “Pénétrable BBL Jaune”.

The structure is an example of kinetic art. As the Serpentine’s website explained:

“From a distance, the closely spaced strands seem to shimmer and shift due to a moiré effect. Visitors are invited to walk through the work, allowing their movement to activate and transform the space around them.”

And many visitors, including me, were tempted to enter the sculpture and make one’s way through the forest of plastic fibres, which, although they look as light as feathers, offer some resistance to one’s passage.

Soto’s sculpture is is both intriguing to enter and to observe from outside it. The seemingly simple array of yellow tubes provides an interesting spectacle as it is disturbed both by breezes and people wandering through it. It will remain on view until 26 October 2026.

Moore and his maquettes in London’s Mayfair

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THE ARTIST HENRY Moore (1898-1986) is probably best known for his huge sculptures, a collection of which are on display at Kew Gardens until 31 January 2027. These massive artworks had small beginnings.

Moore’s large works began life as sketches and, often, as small maquettes (models or miniature sculptures that were often small enough to be held in the palm of a hand). At his country estate at Perry Green in Hertfordshire, one building was dedicated to making maquettes. The maquettes were rather like small three-dimensional sketches. At Perry Green, visitors can see hundreds of Moore’s maquettes, many of which never became developed further.

Plasticine, clay, and plaster were the malleable materials that Moore chose to use for creating maquettes. From the 1950s, he favoured plaster over other materials. It is malleable before it sets, and unlike clay that becomes very hard when dried, plaster is soft enough to cut or carved or inscribed after it has set. Maquettes that pleased him were later copied, modified as needed, to create the larger, final sculptures in various materials. Thus, the artist’s initial idea embodied in the maquette became realised as a finished sculpture.

Some of Moore’s maquettes have been cast into bronze, and make fine but tiny collectable sculptures. There is an exhibition of these bronze maquettes, each of them depicting female forms, at Richard Green Gallery in London’s New Bond Street. The maquettes are well-displayed, and on the gallery’s wall, there are informative panels with details about the artist and the way he worked. Some of the maquettes we saw must have been ‘precursors’ for several of Moore’s sculptures in Tate Britain.

We saw the exhibition on 24 June 2026. I rang the gallery to discover when the exhibition will finish, and was told that it will continue until all the maquettes are sold. So, if you have between £230, 000 and £1,000,000 going spare, hurry up and buy one!

Facing the river Thames from beneath one of its bridges

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THE BRIDGE THAT traverses the River Thames closest to London’s Tate Britain Gallery is Vauxhall Bridge. When viewed from the river’s embankments, this structure with 5 spans (arches over the water) can be seen to be adorned with statues on each of its four piers on both sides of the bridge, four facing downstream, and four facing upstream. These sculptures cannot be seen when you are on the bridge.

The bridge was opened for use in 1906. At that time, there were no sculptures on it. While it was being constructed, many prominent architects considered it to be too functional, not sufficiently appealing to the eye.  It was decided by many including the renowned architect Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) to put up bronze statues on the bridge’s piers.

Two sculptors were chosen to create the sculptures:  Alfred Drury (1856 – 1944), who made the pieces that face downstream, and Frederick W. Pomeroy (1856 – 1924) whose figures face upstream. Installed in 1907, the bronzes are depictions of persons representing Science, Fine Arts, Education, Local Government, Agriculture, Architecture, Engineering, and Pottery (see: https://thetidalthames.com/2022/02/06/the-vauxhall-bridge-statues/).

Today, the bridge carries much traffic, and is overlooked on both sides by tall buildings erected in the last few years. Their simple lines and functional designs make a sharp contrast with the relatively decorative bridge with its eight sculptures. Close to the northern edge of the bridge, next to a block of flats, there is another sculpture, which was made by one of Britain’s leading twentieth century artists, Henry Moore.

Modern art on display in an English country house setting

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CLAYDON HOUSE IN Buckinghamshire has been owned by the Verney family since 1620. It has been owned by the National Trust since 1956. Filled with beautifully and quite fantastically decorated rooms, the house contains many works of art – paintings, sculptures, furniture, etc – collected by the Verneys.

Until 14 September 2026, the house and its gardens are hosting an exhibition of contemporary artworks. These have been provided by the White Cube group of art galleries. More than 40 works from their collection are on display. The artists, whose work can be seen at Claydon House include (to name but a few): David Altmejd, Tracey Emin, Theaster Gates, Antony Gormley, Anselm Kiefer, Isamu Noguchi, Raqib Shaw, and Cai Guo-Qiang. These and others make a very impressive line-up. Some of the works are in the gardens, but most of them are within the house, mingling with the Verney’s own collection of objets d’art.

From the point of view of looking at these artworks, I see little point in showing them in the historic setting of Claydon House. There is something faintly amusing seeing the contemporary artwork almost competing with the variety of picturesque items within the house, which were created many years before their existence. As for the sculptures in the garden, I liked their settings.

After seeing the White Cube’s offerings at Claydon House, a thought occurred to me. The Verney’s collection of art and the interior décor of their residence reflected the aesthetic tastes of the house’s owners over the centuries. It was art that was collected by wealthy landowners who lived at Claydon and wanted to keep up with latest fashions. What I wondered was whether the family would have bought artworks such as were being lent by White Cube had they still been living in the house today. After all, what is sold by White Cube is mostly only affordable by private individuals with considerable wealth. And had the Verney family continued to live in the grand, opulent style that is reflected in the rooms of Claydon House, they might well have been tempted to add some of the kind of art – maybe not the most adventurous pieces – sold by White Cube to their collection.

Both the mansion with its historical décor and artworks and the exhibits provided by White Cube make it well worth visiting Claydon House.

The town clerk who helped to save a wall built by the Romans

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HADRIANS WALL WAS commenced in 122 AD to fulfil the order of Emperor Hadrian, who wanted to separate Roman Britain from the so-called barbarians who lived in what is now Scotland and parts of Northumberland. The wall stretched 73 miles west from Bowness-on-Solway to Wallsend (next to Newcastle) on the River Tyne. Soon after it was built, it began to decline, and over the years, people used some of its stones to construct their own buildings.

Had it not been for the efforts of people like John Clayton (1792-1890), much of what we can see of Hadrian’s Wall today might have been lost forever. After having had a classical education, Clayton was a Town Clerk of Newcastle-on-Tyne and an antiquarian.

In 1796, John’s father, Nathaniel, bought the Chesters Eastate, through which part of Hadrian’s Wall runs. In its grounds, there stands a mansion, which was built in about 1771. After his father’s death in 1822, John inherited Chesters. John, who was keen on antiquities, excavated the Roman ruins on his land. These included what was left of a Roman fort known as ‘Cilurnum’. He also discovered the remains of a Roman Bridge that traversed to Tyne from the fort. After 1832, Clayton purchased other pieces of land on which there were remains of the Wall and its associated forts.

We visited Chesters, which is maintained by English Heritage. In addition to its well conserved remaims of the various parts of the Roman fort, there is a wonderful museum that contains many roman sculptures and inscribed stone discovered by Clayton. The museum, which is filled with many fine carvings, is delightfully old-fashioned. The museum was built after John Clayton’s death, but I am sure that he would have approved of the way his finds have been displayed.

A marquis and a sculptor and a ruined abbey in Scotland

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 MUCH OF THE ABBEY church in Jedburgh is ruined. Founded in the twelfth century as an Augustinian monastery,  Jedburgh was dissolved in the sixteenth century. Now a picturesque ruin, only one part remains intact. This small chamber contains funerary monuments of the Kerr family  the marquises of Lothian.

 

The fine sculpture depicting William Schomberg Robert Kerr (1832-1870), the eighth MARQUIS of Lothian was carved in 1879. by George Frederick Watts (1817-1904).  

 

By GF Watts at Jedburgh

I was particularly interested to ‘stumble across’ this sculpture by Watts because his sculpture, “Physical Energy”, a huge bronze horseman, which stands in London’s Kensington Gardens is one I often pass while walking in that park, which is near my home.

We went to view the Angel but did not find it angelic

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RIO DE JANEIRO has its tall Cristo Redentore statue with its outstretched arms, New York City has the Statue of Liberty, and Gujarat has its tall Statue of Unity. And northeast England’s Gateshead has the Angel of the North with its outstretched wings.

 

The Angel was created by the sculptor Antony Gormley, and completed in 1998. For many years I had been looking forward to seeing it ‘in the flesh’, so to speak, and today, 22 April 2026, we drove to see it. I am sorry to say that it did not impress me. The angel’s outstretched wings, with a wingspan of 177 feet reminded me not of an angel but of a rusty aeroplane. 

 

Of the many sculptures by Gormley that I have seen over the years, this Angel is not amongst my favourites. Nevertheless,  I am glad that I have seen it, and walked around its base, but I am not sure it is worth going out of your way to see it. We happened to be staying a few miles from it in Washington,  (after which a city in the USA has been named) in Tyne and Wear, so we made a small detour to see the Angel.