Page 28 - Reside Magazine Briggs Freeman

Sculpture for all Seasons

one rule: “Don’t place your piece in the middle of the lawn. It’s impractical
(you have to mow around it) and aesthetically unsatisfactory.”
Building a sculpture garden, even from a single work, begins with
observation. “Look for good backgrounds in the garden that will enhance
the piece you are thinking of buying,” says Leedham. “To choose a site, look
at how the light changes through the day in different parts of the space.
It is good to discover sculpture as you walk through a garden.”
It was the artist Barbara Hepworth who said: “I prefer my work to be seen
outside. I think sculpture grows in the open light and with the movement of “
the sun.” In the grounds of the art museum that bears her name, The Hepworth
Wakefield, in the north of England, garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith has BUILDING
created sinuous paths and asymmetrical beds inspired by Hepworth’s 1932
sculpture “Kneeling Figure.” Michael Craig-Martin’s 11ft-tall “Pitchfork (Yellow),” A SCULPTURE
2013, also holds its own here, among such tough sculptural plants as yarrow,
Russian sage and coneflower. GARDEN
Some sculptors make their own gardens. Hepworth laid one out behind
her studio in St Ives, Cornwall, now run by the Tate. And in Tuscany, the BEGINS WITH
Swiss-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle created the exuberant and vital Il
Giardino dei Tarocchi (or Tarot Garden), which celebrates female joy. OBSERVATION
Her “Nanas”—bulbous, brightly painted figures that seem to dance
and jump—recall one of the earliest female sculptures ever discovered,
the paleolithic Venus of Willendorf, some 30,000 years old. They also reflect
the personality of their creator.
The same can be said of Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta, ”
in the bare and windy Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, Scotland—though his
garden is an austere, cerebral place. Stone plaques carved with short quotations
from classical antiquity or the names of leaders of the French Revolution lie
across seven acres of moorland. There is a strange beauty here and a unique,
sometimes unnerving, atmosphere, as though the visitor has stumbled across
a lost civilization. The garden is a work
of art in its own right.
Materials matter when it comes
to placing sculpture, says Leedham.
“Think of the texture of a piece
and the background you will see it
against,” she advises. “The rough bark
of a tree can look wonderful beside
a roughly glazed ceramic. You will
see a highly polished marble piece
better in dappled shade to appreciate
its contours. Glass pieces work well
near water.”
Similarly, Leedham suggests
considering the juxtaposition of
shapes: a tall, slim sculpture near

Right: Barbara Hepworth’s “Two Forms
(Divided Circle),” 1969, at the Barbara
Hepworth Museum and Sculpture
Garden in Cornwall, England
Opposite: Michael Craig-Martin’s
“Pitchfork (Yellow),” 2020, at The
Hepworth Wakefield in England

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