Mayfair is a residential and commercial area dominated by terraces of town houses.[1] In Grosvenor Square there are several memorials with an American theme, including a memorial garden commemorating the September 11 attacks, due to the former presence on that square of the US Embassy.[2] At the southern end of the district, the courtyard of Burlington House (home of the Royal Academy of Arts) on Piccadilly is frequently used as a temporary exhibition space for artworks.
Unveiled 22 August 1831; there was an attempt by reformist opponents of Pitt to pull the statue down on the morning of the unveiling. Concerns for the work's security might have been the reason for the unusually tall plinth.[4]
Pedestal inscribed THE GIFT/ OF/ HENRY 3RD MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE. This Fountain Nymph was Munro's second treatment of the theme after that for the memorial to Herbert Ingram in Boston, Lincolnshire (1862–1863). He also produced a smaller marble version of the Berkeley Square Nymph, which was installed in a public garden in Oxford in around 1970.[5]
The Michelangelesque crouching figures on the first storey are typical of the architect's work, while the draped female figures on the second storey evoke reliefs by Jean Goujon. The other detailing has been called "discreetly perverse".[6][7]
Inscribed THIS FOUNTAIN WAS ERECTED BY HENRY LOFTS IN/ RECOGNITION OF MANY HAPPY YEARS IN MOUNT STREET/ SIR ERNEST GEORGE. RA FECIT 1892. Lofts was an estate agent, and George an architect, to the Grosvenor estate. Lofts's office was in Mount Street, which was partly rebuilt by his firm with George as architect.[8]
Unveiled 12 April 1948 by Eleanor Roosevelt. The standing pose is intended to recall one of the moments when Roosevelt took the oath of office; he usually used a wheelchair due to his paralytic illness. Winston Churchill, who first proposed the statue, had hoped for a seated portrayal of the President as a pendant to the statue of Abraham Lincoln on Parliament Square.[16]
Frink's catalogue raisonné notes that these figures personify "the most desirable masculine qualities", namely "speed, resilience, intelligence, loyalty, affection, courage, sensitivity, beauty and free sensuality". Another cast was erected in Winchester High Street in 1983. Previously situated on Dover Street near the junction with Piccadilly,[20] the work was moved to its current location in 2018 to mark the opening of the Royal Academy's new entrance at 6 Burlington Gardens.[21]
Unveiled 2 May 1995, shortly before the 50th anniversary of VE Day, by Princess Margaret. The sculptor's wife gifted the group to the nation, but the Royal Fine Art Commission ruled out a location in a central London park. The Bond Street Association then expressed an interest in the work.[27]
Quotations from the French revolutionary Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are inscribed on the terracotta façade: "Too many laws, too few examples" and "Les Mots Juste et Injuste Sont Entendus Par Toutes Les Consciences"[30][31]
The three reliefs, representing scenes from the Odyssey, are an allegory of "the extreme lengths modern art has taken to distance itself from its origin in Greece".[41]
A raised granite-edged pool into which two trees are set, and which emits clouds of water vapour for fifteen seconds every fifteen minutes.[42] Jointly commissioned by the Grosvenor Estate and the Connaught Hotel; Blair Associates Architects and the Building Design Partnership were also involved the project.[43]
Unveiled 4 July 2011. Westminster City Council's rule that a person may only be commemorated by a statue 10 years after their death was waived so that Margaret Thatcher could perform the unveiling,[45] but she proved too unwell to attend the ceremony. A fragment of the Berlin Wall is incorporated into the pedestal.[46]
Unveiled by Twiggy, one of the work's subjects, on 31 May 2012.[48] A plaque nearby provides the following exegesis: "A passing shopper stumbles upon/ Terence Donovan photographing the model Twiggy/ near to his studio in 1960s Mayfair".[49]
3.6 metres (12 ft)-high bronze gates with abstract patterns of "flowing lines and intersecting arcs ... reflecting the life and style of Mayfair", which can be lowered at night in the manner of a portcullis.[50][51][52]
An Age, An Instant
New Burlington Mews
2014
Rona Smith
—
Gate
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Unveiled 29 April 2014. The artist took her inspiration from turn-of-the-century pocket watches, as this locale was a centre for the watchmaking trade in the early 20th century when the building's façade was rebuilt.[53]
The gambling club's founder, John Aspinall, was a noted wildlife enthusiast whose two animal parks in Kent, Howletts and Port Lympne, are funded by the club's proceeds.[61]
Burlington House
Sydney Smirke's remodelling of Burlington House for the Royal Academy of Arts in 1872–1873 included adding an additional storey to house the Diploma Galleries; the resulting windowless exterior was adorned with statues of artists in niches.[62] A freestanding statue by Alfred Drury of Joshua Reynolds, the Academy's founding president, was installed at the centre of the courtyard in 1931. In 2002 the courtyard was refurbished to a design by Michael Hopkins, after the Academy received a donation from Walter and Leonore Annenberg. At the suggestion of the architect Ian Ritchie, the lights and fountains set into the pavement were arranged in the position of the planets, the Moon and some of the bright stars as they would have appeared over London on the night of Reynolds's birth. The courtyard is used as an exhibition space for temporary artworks.[63]
Unveiled 12 December 1931.[65] Drury was awarded the commission in 1917, but was too preoccupied with war memorials in the following years to proceed with the work. In 1926 he had to start over with a new composition after his studio assistant failed to keep the first clay figure moist every night, which had led to its disintegration.[66]
^Sheppard, F. H. W., ed. (1963). "Burlington Arcade". Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32: St James Westminster, Part 2. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
Blackwood, John (1989). London's Immortals: The Complete Outdoor Commemorative Statues. London and Oxford: Savoy Press. ISBN978-0951429600.
Bradley, Simon; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2003). London: Westminster. The Buildings of England. Vol. 6. London and New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-09595-1.
Ward-Jackson, Philip (2011). Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster: Volume 1. Public Sculpture of Britain. Vol. 14. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN978-1-84631-691-3.
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