Awakening

When Awakening was exhibited in 1960 at Battersea Park, Ledward described it in the accompanying catalogue as follows:

This bronze is an early work…It is a deliberate type of study from life which one rarely has the time or the opportunity to carry out more than once in a life-time and I worked on it, over a long period, from a model who in my opinion had a particularly sculpturesque figure. (London County Council, Sculpture in the Open Air (exh. cat.; Battersea Park, London, May to September 1960).

For a full description of this statue and its history, see Terry Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Kensington and Chelsea with Westminster South-West, Watford, 2023, pp. 33-34.

Location: Ropers Gardens, Chelsea Embankment, SW3

Bronze Woman

Location: Stockwell Memorial Garden, London SW9

Cracker Packers

Location: Bridge Street, Carlisle

Fishwife

Location: Whitby Sculpture Trail

Fountain Nymph

Gansey Girl

The subject of this sculpture celebrates East Yorkshire’s maritime heritage and was inspired by the fishing industry and the local community. Sited on the North Pier at Bridlington, the fishermen can see the Gansey Girl as they set out to sea and as they return. The statue depicts a girl from a fishing family, who is knitting a gansey, which is a traditional fisherman’s heavy woollen sweater that was originally made on the Channel Island of Guernsey, hence the name ‘gansey’. The gansey was adopted by coastal areas on the British mainland with villages and families developing their own unique and distinctive patterns.

A shoal of fish appear to swim around beneath the statue, every one was cast from an actual fish and has the name of  a local fishing family engraved upon it. The fish were placed on the pedestal by members of these families.

http://www.bridlingtonharbour.com/video/gansey-girl-statue-artist-steve-carvill-bridlington-harbour/

Location: North Pier of the Harbour, Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire

Gansey Knitter

Location: The Whitby Sculpture Trail

La Délivrance

Known locally as ‘The Naked Lady’, this statue by the French sculptor Émile Guillaume was purchased by the newspaper magnate, Lord Rothermere, who donated it to Finchley Urban District Council.  Their original intention was to erect it in Victoria Park, but Rothermere insisted it should be installed in its current location.

Designed by Guillaume between 1914-1919 and initially called La Victoire (Victory), the statue commemorates the Allies victory, when the British and French armies defeated invading German armies at the Battle of the Marne in September 1914. An unusual war memorial, it was awarded a prize when exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1920. Eleven casts of La Délivrance (Deliverance) in various sizes were produced by Barbedienne and presented to cities in France and Belgium which had been occupied or destroyed during the First World War. A cast purchased by the city of Nantes is the same size as the present bronze.

When the statue was unveiled  in 1927, Lord Rothermere described the sculpture to the crowd as simply a beautiful monument, rather than a war memorial in the ordinary sense. While Lloyd George told them to  ‘gaze at this statue and you will see that its message and meaning represent a symbol of what victory in the war meant to humanity – deliverance. Now we should strive for deliverance, not by the sword, but from it.’
An information panel put up in 2007 reads: ‘LA DELIVRANCE / THIS STATUE BY EMILE GUILLAUME SYMBOLIZES / THE EMOTION INSPIRED AMONG THE ALLIED NATIONS / WHEN THE ARMIES OF BRITAIN AND FRANCE / DEFEATED THE INVADING GERMAN ARMIES / AT THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE SEPTEMBER 1914 / PRESENTED BY VISCOUNT ROTHERMERE’.

Location: Henly's Corner, Regents Park Road, Finchley, London, N3.

Large Crouching Figure

Location: Carlos Place (junction with Mount Street), London

Messenger

Location: Outside Theatre Royal Plymouth, Plymouth Parade