Our piece of Public Art

I was driving to work this morning and caught a piece on Radio 4 about public art in the UK. It got me thinking about our own piece of public art here in the courtyard at Beckford Silk and thought you might be interested in hearing more about it.

Sculpture at Beckford Silk by John Poole 1990

The statue that sits on a Cotswold stone plinth in the centre of the courtyard space created by our building is the representation of a skein of silk created for us by the sculptor John Poole (1926 – 2009).

His obituary in The Independent describes him thus;

"Anthony John Poole was one of the most distinguished and versatile British architectural sculptors, letter-cutters and restorers during the last half-century. His base was the Midlands, which has many of his sculptures, but his fine and often monumental works are to be found much further afield…. Poole was one of the last sculptor-craftsmen upholding the values of traditional practice and technique"

My father had started a tradition that when opening a new venture he would commission a work of art. For the opening of The Falconry Restaurant in Evesham he had commissioned a bronze statue of a falcon from artist Walenty Pytel. For The Wheatsheaf Restaurant in Tewkesbury local artist Bryant Fedden was commissioned to design and engrave glass panels for the entrance that depict the battle of Tewkesbury during the War of the Roses (this can still be seen in the building that is now a book shop). So as he was working on the design of the ‘new’ Beckford Silk building, he was already starting to envisage some sort of sculpture.

The contact with John Poole came via the boyfriend of one of our employees at the time and in 1989 James commissioned John to design and carve a statue that was to be inspired by a skein of silk.

The stone came from Hopton Wood Quarry in Derbyshire and started as a two tonne block. John worked on it in his studio in Bishampton Worcestershire but the piece also travelled to an art festival at Water Perry Gardens near Oxford where John was demonstrating. James remembers going to see him at work there. John completed the sculpture back at his studio and the finished piece was installed at Beckford Silk ready for the grand opening of the building in August 1990.

The finished sculpture is approximately 1.5m x 0.9m (5ft x 3ft) and weighs about one tonne. It is our own small contribution to ‘public art in the UK’.

Close up of sculpture A Skeine of Silk by John Poole

A Skeine of Silk by John Poole