It has been some time since my latest stock update and much to say, so I will try to be brief. To go back to Chelsea Flower Show and the last time I made contact... we had a great show and with 4 stars the powers that be felt our stand was Award worthy – I thank you! More shows just recently at Decorex and t he British Art Fair, held at the Saatchi Gallery - a big Hello to all our new friends met. Modern British Sculpture is now firmly imbedded in the fabric of Architectural Heritage, and if you would like to receive more detailed emails – not many I promise – do just let me know and I will add you to my Modern British only email group. As you will see, the antique garden ornament has if anything expanded as we grow as a company, and so for your interest I have some things Large, some things Small, and always things Unusual...

The Large; a wonderful, nay a magnificent, 9ft single marble campana urn (so called as in Italian this is a bell shape) is raised on a solid marble base. A pair of enormous (7ft tall!) Meiji Period (1868-1912) bronze cranes stamped with the makers name: Yoshida f rom Kyoto, interestingly this company exhibited at the first official ‘World’s Fair’ in Philadelphia USA in 1876 (a city I will be in in two weeks’ time exhibiting once more at the ASLA Conference). A huge Portland stone sculpture ‘The Evolution’ circa 1930, carved by Edward Bainbridge Copnall – featured in his autobiography ‘The Big Block of Stone’, “I took the first Chapter of Genesis … I evolved a shape growing out of the rugged ripples of stone which formed a base, the shape grew up and passing through a fish like form developed into a stony man”, a fine work in a style that in its time shone bright but has been since overshadowed by post War works – I find this era fascinating and will always look to represent the art of the forgotten greats.

The Small; to keep in the period we have a charming niche figure in the Arts & Crafts manner, of a young woman carrying the bough of an oak tree as an attribute of Autumn – how apt!  Dora Gordine with ‘Demi-Pli é ’ 1948 shows a style harking back to her time in Paris where she, by repute, met Aristide Maillol and learnt to patinate and also cast bronze through the lost wax (cire perdue) process. And from the original ‘Antique’ here we have a fine Neapolitan bronze of The Spinario, or thorn puller, raised on a fine Sienna and white statuary marble column – the story goes that the subject celebrates how a young shepherd boy only stopped to remove a thorn after a message was delivered safely to the Senate. A message of a different kind is delivered in 1937 by Peter Laszlo Peri, through his work ‘Street Sweeper’, “...show him not as a pompous heroic figure, but as part of our surroundings. I choose one of his characteristic resting poses, I have drawn my neighbour's attention to another neighbour whom he passed a thousand times on the street, but to whom he never gave a second thought."  As a footnote in history, Peri's critically acclaimed exhibition was opened by none other than Anthony Blunt.

The not so Unusual; three great works by living Sculptors – I am proud to hold sculpture by Michael Lyons, Keith Milow and Stephen Cox.  Michael’s work often investigates myth and belief, here the Roman cult of Mithraicism is explored with found and forged elements combining to activate space with a dynamism that forces you to explore all angles of the work. The opposite, almost antithesis, is Keith Milow's ‘Cross 05 12’, cool, hard-edged, irreverent, this work continues Keith’s long-term exploration of the cross-over from sculpture to painting and back again.   Stephen Cox – ‘Across’ a work in the impossibly hard Imperial Porphyry is informed by the architecture of Egyptians Tombs – more precisely that of the Apis Bulls. The material is important here as special permission was granted to Keith to extract Porphyry not quarried since the Renaissance.

To conclude the selection of Modern British; here are two drawings within my self-defined area of 'sculpture and drawings by sculptors'. In 1960 Bryan Kneale created this strong work, which though muted in tone, is gem like in quality.  Jacob Epstein and ‘Sunita Asleep’ – interestingly her real name is Amira Peerbhoy 'found' by Epstein at the British Empire Exhibition Wembley 1924. So much more to talk about here, however, this will come in another email if you would like to receive more information specifically on Modern British.

After all this you may want to sit down, possibly on a rather smart ‘Games Seat’ (provenanced to Wilton House) and gaze through any number of little wooden garden gates, which I have (by popular demand) sourced once more from India – please do click on any image to find out more information. Sorry this was not brief at all – too much to say but please do come back to me for more information as you need. With best regards Alex