As long ago as the ancient Greek era, heroic works of sculpture were placed in public places (often the gates of the city or a market square) as ways of symbolically reinforcing state power and civic pride.

Henry Moore

The 20th-century English sculptor Henry Moore, who died in 1986, has had more works displayed in public places throughout the world than any other sculptor in history. He was one of the pioneers of formal abstraction, but is also noted for his reclining human forms in which the empty spaces are as important as the solid matter.


Among the English sites where Moore’s work may be seen are:

• On the Thames riverside at Millbank, central London (Locking Piece, 1963):
  
  
  

• The green opposite the House of Lords, central London (Knife Edge Two Piece, 1962), above.
  

• The grounds of Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath, London (Two Piece Reclining Figure no. 5, 1963-1964), left.
  

Public memorials

The early 19th century was the great era for memorials. Commemorative works marked the career of Admiral Lord Nelson, after his death at the Battle of Trafalgar, the most famous of these being Nelson’s Column, in the centre of Trafalgar Square.

Over the course of the next 150 years, the nature of public memorials changed from celebrating British imperial power to once again commemorating events such as civil maritime disasters, and then the losses suffered in the two world wars.

Sir Thomas Brock’s memorial to Queen Victoria, celebrating the life of our longest-reigning monarch, was unveiled in the capital in 1911. She sits looking down the Mall with her back to Buckingham Palace, a vision of imperial certainty set in stone: www.victorianweb.org

The Titanic disaster of 1912 spawned many public memorials. An outstanding example is Sir William Goscombe John’s Memorial To The Engine Room Heroes, a carved obelisk erected in Liverpool in 1916. The city was where the White Star Line, the company that built the doomed ship, was founded.

The Festival of Britain

After the second world war the emphasis turned to symbolising Britain’s post-imperial identity. Suddenly we remembered that we were, after all, a fairly small offshore island on the fringes of Europe.

 A work called The Islanders by Austrian-born sculptor Siegfried Charoux was the most prominent of the pieces commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951. The Festival, held on the centenary of the 1851 Great Exhibition, was a huge demonstration of Britain’s achievements in the arts, science and industrial design.

The Islanders was a vast stone relief positioned at the entrance to the Sea and Ships Pavilion, on the South Bank of the Thames, and depicted a family wrapped up against the winter cold, gazing out to sea from their island home: www.packer34.freeserve.co.uk (third picture)

Trafalgar Square

Modern public sculptures often arouse strong reactions and become the subject of great debate. One particularly controversial topic is the ongoing series of projects that have been installed on the famously vacant fourth plinth standing in the north-west corner of Trafalgar Square.

Originally intended to support a statue of William IV, it stood empty from the time of the King’s death in 1837 until 1999 – he died without leaving sufficient funds for its completion.

Suggestions were invited to see who the public would like to occupy the empty spot. Ideas ranged from the Queen Mother and Nelson Mandela to David Beckham but, because there wasn’t a consensus of opinion, a selection of contemporary artists were asked to produce a work that would be exhibited at the site for a year or so.

Works to date have included Mark Wallinger’s diminutive Christ-figure Ecce Homo (1999), Bill Woodrow’s Regardless Of History (2000), Rachel Whiteread’s Monument (2001) and Marc Quinn’s Alison Lapper Pregnant – unveiled in September 2005. This will be followed in 2007 by German artist Thomas Schütte’s Hotel For The Birds, a construction of interlocking, multi-coloured Perspex boxes.

These works share Trafalgar Square with the three permanent figures: George IV, military heroes General Sir Charles Napier and Major-General Sir Henry Havelock, and, of course, the dominating figure of Nelson on his column.

It's a wrap!

Slightly more frivolous, but a work of public art nonetheless, was XV Seconds by Sam Taylor-Wood (May-October 2000), a giant photograph wrapped around the outside of Selfridges in London. This was the largest photograph ever made: over 900ft long and wrapped round 3 sides of the building. It was commissioned by Selfridges to cover the unsightly scaffolding that surrounded them while they were having renovations done. The title refers to the length of time it took for the camera to revolve 360 degrees to create the necessary panoramic shot.

The artist described the work as “a contemporary version of the Elgin marble frieze from the Parthenon, peopled with modern-day ‘gods’ to adorn a temple of shopping.” The 21 “Gods” featured in the photograph included: Elton John, actors Ray Winstone, Richard E Grant, Timothy Spall and Jane Horrocks, Alex James from Blur, models Jodie Kidd and Alek Wek, footballers, dancers and celebrity chefs. The celebrities were photographed in poses reminiscent of other famous works of art, such as Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

People from all over the world came to see the photograph - even if they didn’t all stay to shop!

Public art today

Other much talked-about works of public art of recent years have included Antony Gormley’s Another Place, a series of 100 life-size, cast-iron human forms standing on Crosby beach, near Liverpool, which occasionally disappears underneath the incoming tide, and the famous concrete hippo outside the Lloyds TSB bank in Walsall’s Civic Square.

Between June and October 2005, the skyline of Hampstead Heath in north London was transformed by a work called The Writer, by Italian artist Giancarlo Neri.

Transported painstakingly from Rome, it consisted of a gigantic desk and chair, symbolising the lonely life of the author. Some people felt that it was an even truer picture than the artist intended, in that the writer appeared to have got so lonely that they had gone off and done something else instead!

Where to find it

It’s always worth making an effort to see works of public art at first hand – if they aren’t permanent installations, they may be gone again before you know it.

Established in 1991, the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (www.pmsa.org.uk) is publishing (with Liverpool University Press) a complete set of regional guides to public sculptures in the UK. This will eventually be an online database.

If there is a drawback to public works of art, it is that because they tend to be scattered we only see one at a time. If we have left you hungry for more, a visit to a sculpture park could well be the answer.

One of the best is the Yorkshire Sculpture Park at West Bretton, just south of Wakefield (www.ysp.co.uk). Beside works by Henry Moore’s contemporaries, Barbara Hepworth and Dame Elisabeth Frink, it includes his impressive Three Piece Reclining Figure no. 1 (1961): Click here to view this Henry Moore sculpture