Levitating Figure - Leeds, UK
Posted by: dtrebilc
N 53° 48.461 W 001° 33.295
30U E 595157 N 5963093
This sculpture is one of a number of art works placed round the campus of Leeds University.
Waymark Code: WM126AP
Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/09/2020
Views: 0
It stands in the cloth workers courtyard, the oldest part of the university which at that time was Yorkshire College.
The following information is taken from a pdf document about public sculpture on the Leeds University campus.
"1982 ¦ Fibreglass with internal steel armature
Clothworkers’ Court
Gift of Stanley Burton, 1982
Quentin Bell was the son of
Vanessa and Clive Bell and
nephew of Virginia Woolf.
He is renowned as a ceramicist
artist and for his books on
the Bloomsbury artists and
a biography of Virginia Woolf.
He was appointed Head of Fine Art
at the University of Leeds in 1959,
and later as Professor of Fine Art, until
1967. In 1978, Stanley Burton suggested
acquiring a work by Bell for the Leeds campus.
Bell proposed a levitating figure – a recurrent theme in
his art inspired by a conjuror’s trick he saw as a child – and suggested
six potential locations. Stanley and the Vice-Chancellor, Lord Boyle,
eventually decided upon a site near the Edward Boyle Library. The
work was to be cast in fibreglass with a steel armature. An exciting
inter-disciplinary partnership emerged with the Department of Civil
Engineering. Dr. Gurdev Singh was responsible for the design and
construction of the sculpture’s internal armature and the Department
was responsible for the installation of the work, which was unveiled
by Stanley Burton in October 1982.
One of the most popular public artworks on campus, it has moved
several times. It was removed from the Edward Boyle Library site due
to the building expansion and was re-sited in the quiet courtyard of
the Baines Wing coffee bar. More recently it has been relocated in
the Clothworkers’ Court, so that it is more accessible to visitors. It is
commonly known on campus as ‘The Dreamer’, but it is not clear
when this title was acquired. It has also been called ‘The Astral Lady’,
although Bell’s original notes make reference to the ‘Elmdon Figure’.
Whatever its title or location, the artwork is now firmly a key element
in shared memory and place-making experience on campus."
Link