List of public art in Belgravia
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This is a list of public art in Belgravia, a district in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. The area is mainly composed of early 19th-century residential buildings, many of which now serve diplomatic uses.[1] Several of the figures commemorated here were influential in the early development of Belgravia under the ownership of the Grosvenor family (later the Dukes of Westminster). Belgrave Square, which gives the locale its name,[2] has a particularly high number of embassies; its public sculptures are therefore of a pronounced international character.[3]
City of Westminster
| Image | Title / subject | Location and coordinates |
Date | Artist / designer | Architect / other | Type | Designation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Art and Architecture; Animal Husbandry and Agriculture | Norwegian Embassy, 25 Belgrave Square (Belgrave Place elevation) | 1796 | ? | George Basevi (25–36 Belgrave Square, c. 1825) | Reliefs | Grade I | The allegorical reliefs of putti in Coade stone were originally affixed to the Danish-Norwegian Consulate in Wellclose Square, Stepney, and were reinstalled here in 1968.[4] |
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Cupid and Psyche | 11 West Halkin Street | c. 1830–1840 | ? | ? | Relief tondo | Grade II | [5][6] |
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Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster Memorial Drinking Fountain | Junction of Pimlico Road and Avery Farm Row 51.4911°N 0.1503°W |
c. 1870 | Salviati (mosaics) | Thomas Henry Wyatt | Drinking fountain | Grade II | An Italian Renaissance–style drinking fountain of Portland stone and granite, with mosaic panels.[7][8][9] |
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Saint Michael | Fountain Court, junction of Pimlico Road and Avery Farm Row | before 1908 | ? | Architectural sculpture | N/a | A remnant of St Michael's Vicarage, which previously stood on this site.[10] | |
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Obelisk | Walden House, Pimlico Road 51.4912°N 0.1507°W |
c. 1930 | Arnrid Johnston | N/a | Sculptural group | Grade II | A three-sided sculptural group (badly weathered on two sides) of children playing, with a base depicting groups of animals in the round, all in Portland stone. The critic Kineton Parkes considered this to be Johnson's most important work.[11] |
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Angel of Light Overcoming the Powers of Darkness | 33 Grosvenor Place (formerly the Associated Electrical Industries building) | c. 1956–1958 | Maurice Lambert | Albert Richardson and Eric Alfred Scholefield Houfe | Architectural sculpture | N/a | Six groups, each showing an angel killing a demon, carved in situ on the building.[12] |
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Armillary sphere finials | 33 Grosvenor Place (formerly the Associated Electrical Industries building) | c. 1956–1958 | Maurice Lambert | Albert Richardson and Eric Alfred Scholefield Houfe | Architectural sculpture | N/a | Each sphere appears to encase a five-pointed star, has the signs of the zodiac on its outermost ring and rests the backs of two dragons.[12] |
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Fountainhead | Halkin Arcade 51.4994°N 0.1573°W |
1971 | Geoffrey Wickham | N/a | Sculpture | N/a | This work won the Royal British Society of Sculptors' Silver Medal in 1972 for the most distinguished new sculpture in London.[13] |
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Statue of Simón Bolívar | Belgrave Square 51.4992°N 0.1522°W |
1974 | Hugo Daini | N/a | Statue | N/a | Unveiled by James Callaghan, then Foreign Secretary, and the Venezuelan president Rafael Caldera. The statue of Bolívar in London is said to represent him as a maker of constitutions, in contrast to those in Madrid, Rome and Paris, which are equestrian. The quotation on the pedestal stresses his admiration for British institutions: I am convinced that England alone is capable of protecting the world's precious rights as she is great, glorious and wise.[14] |
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Great Flora L | Chesham Place 51.4977°N 0.1548°W |
1978 | Fritz Koenig | N/a | Sculpture | N/a | The sculpture stands outside the extension to the German Embassy, with which it is contemporary.[15] It was conceived as "a fragile 'call-sign' in the heart of the surging metropolis".[16] Flora I, a work by the same artist, is in the garden of the German Chancellery in Berlin.[17] |
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Hercules | Ormonde Place 51.4909°N 0.1539°W |
1981 | ? | N/a | Statue | N/a | A small, bronze replica of the Farnese Hercules. Pedestal inscribed HERCULES/ THIS STATUE IS EXHIBITED/ BY WATES LIMITED/ MAY 1981. |
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Homage to Leonardo Leonardo da Vinci |
Belgrave Square Gardens | 1982 | Enzo Plazzotta and Mark Holloway | N/a | Sculpture | N/a | Based on Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man. Completed by Holloway, Plazzotta's studio assistant, after the elder sculptor's death in 1981. Funded by the American construction magnate John M. Harbert.[18] |
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Statue of Christopher Columbus | Belgrave Square 51.4985°N 0.1536°W |
1992 | Tomás Bañuelos | N/a | Statue | N/a | Given by the people of Spain in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage. His birth date is mistakenly given as 1446 on the pedestal.[19] |
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Statue of José de San Martín | Belgrave Square 51.5000°N 0.1535°W |
1994 | Juan Carlos Ferraro | N/a | Statue | N/a | A gift of the Anglo-Argentine community in Argentina, unveiled by the Duke of Edinburgh.[20] San Martín is depicted in general's uniform with his bicorne hat held casually in his right hand, while in his left he holds a trailing sword below the hilt. An inscription reads His name represents democracy, justice and liberty.[21] |
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Statue of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Orange Square, corner of Ebury Street and Pimlico Road 51.4908°N 0.1529°W |
1994 | Philip Jackson | N/a | Statue | N/a | The composer is portrayed at the age of eight, when he stayed at 180 Ebury Street for the summer and autumn of 1764; he wrote his first two symphonies there. The statue was proposed to mark the bicentenary of Mozart's death in 1991.[22] |
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Statue of Robert Grosvenor, 1st Marquess of Westminster | Wilton Crescent 51.5004°N 0.1538°W |
1998 | Jonathan Wylder | N/a | Statue | N/a | The developer of Belgravia is shown studying plans of the area, his foot resting on a milestone inscribed CHESTER/ 197/ MILES, a reference to his estate at Eaton Hall in Cheshire. On either side sit two talbots, the supporters from his coat of arms.[23] An inscription on the pedestal reads WHEN WE BUILD, LET US THINK WE BUILD FOR EVER—a slight misquotation from John Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849).[24] |
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Armillary sphere | Belgrave Square Gardens | 2000 | ? | N/a | Armillary sphere | N/a | A gift from the Duke of Westminster to mark the beginning of the third millennium. The inscription on the rim is taken from William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" (1803): To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.[25] |
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Statue of Henry the Navigator | Belgrave Square 51.4992°N 0.1548°W |
2002 | José Simões de Almeida | N/a | Statue | N/a | Unveiled 12 February 2002 by Jorge Sampaio, the President of Portugal.[26] A cast of a statue in Vila Franca do Campo on São Miguel Island, erected in 1932 to commemorate the quincentenary of the arrival of the Portuguese to the Azores.[27] The Portuguese Embassy is at 11 Belgrave Square.[28] |
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Bust of George Basevi | Belgrave Square Gardens 51.4989°N 0.1529°W |
2002 | Jonathan Wylder | N/a | Bust | N/a | Basevi was responsible for the design and construction of Belgrave Square in 1825–1840.[29][30] |
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Slate Wall | Montrose Place | 2007 | Andy Goldsworthy | Wall | N/a | Part of the 10 Montrose Place development[31][32] | |
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Water's Murmur | Kinnerton Street | 2009 | Julian Stocks | KSS | Perforated steel screen | N/a | A map of London, this commemorates the "lost" River Westbourne, whose course runs under the street.[33][34] |
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Bicameral | Chelsea Barracks, near the Pimlico Road entrance | 2019 | Conrad Shawcross | Structure Workshop (engineers) | Sculpture | N/a | Unveiled 7 November 2019. A tree-like aluminium structure assembled with only pins and dowels, using techniques from Japanese joinery. The title comes from The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976) by Julian Jaynes.[35] |
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The Friendship Bench | Halkin Arcade | 2020 | Gillie and Marc | N/a | Sculpture | N/a | Sculpture of the artists' alter egos Dogman and Rabbitwoman seated on a bench. Another cast is installed at the Clos Pegase Winery in California.[36] |
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
| Image | Title / subject | Location and coordinates |
Date | Artist / designer | Architect / other | Type | Designation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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The Jeeves Ladies | Outside Jeeves shop, Pont Street | 1974 | Kate McGill | N/a | Sculptural group | N/a | Based on the logo, depicting two gossiping Edwardian ladies out shopping, designed by Derrick Holmes for the dry cleaning firm Jeeves of Belgravia. Holmes also produced the maquette for the sculpture.[37] |
