About this piece
back to topA set of 4 weathered composition stone statues depicting the arts from Sir Roy Strong’s Laskett Garden, Herefordshire.
This complete set of durable, good scale composition stone statues are marked ‘David Sharp, London Sculptors’ to the base at the back. They date from the late 20th century but take after earlier Georgian styles, making them a stunning feature of gardens old and new.
The statues are each a sculptural representation of the arts. This includes: a female painter holding a palette and brush, a male sculptor with mallet and chisel, a female musician playing a lyre and a male architect with set square in hand.
These four arts statues are coordinated by their scale and classical dress, all with a beautifully weathered finish that can only be achieved by exposure to the elements over many decades.
Sir Roy Strong CH, FRSL, FSA (B. 23 August 1935)
Born in Middlesex, England in 1935, Art Historian Sir Roy Strong was able to attend grammar school which led to him earning a first class honours degree in history. This was followed by a PHD from the prestigious Warburg institute, before he became a research fellow at the London Institute of Historical Research.
Strong went on to become the director of the National Portrait Gallery at age 32 before becoming the youngest ever Director at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum at age 38 in 1974. In 1973, Sir Roy Strong and his wife Julia Trevelyan Oman, Lady Strong CBE (11 July 1930 – 10 October 2003) exited London on the tail end of the cultural revolution of the sixties and eloped to a rural property in Much Birch, Herefordshire.
Over the next thirty years the couple built up the four-acre Laskett Garden, the largest created since the second world war. The garden became a tribute to their individual and joint achievements, with sections dedicated to Queen Elizabeth after Strong’s early interests in the portraiture of Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare after Roy was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare award, Covent Garden after Julia’s commissions and the Beaton Bridge after the publication of Cecil Beaton’s Royal Portraits by Roy Strong.
Additional Dimensions
Widest statue: 45cm (17.71 in)
Bases: 34 x 34cm approx. (13.38 in)
