The Mayfair Sculpture Trail
The Mayfair Sculpture Trail, an Art in Mayfair collaboration with Mayfair Art Weekend, offers the opportunity to see beyond the walls of the gallery. For just six weeks, discover temporary sculptures across Mayfair including Kojo Marfo's new work, Treasure of the Heart, on New Bond Street. Our favourite permanent works are also included in the trail, such as the not-so-hidden Banksy on Bruton Lane.
A free audio guide is available through the Smartify app, and you’ll be able to collect a map every weekend in Grosvenor Square from 12 - 5pm.
1. Maurice Blik, Dancing (2020)
Location: Grosvenor Square, W1K 4AE
Presented by: Bowman Sculpture
Gallery: 6 Duke Street St James's, SW1Y 6BN
A survivor of the Holocaust, Maurice Blik has overcome the traumas of his early life and focused his energy on creating sculptures that evoke movement, freedom and life.
Blik’s sculptures are born entirely of his imagination. There is no armature or drawings; just a feeling of what he wants to create. Once the figures emerge, they are full of energy and emotion. Evoking a definite feeling of the human spirit, Blik’s most recent work is very much focused on life and the act of living.
2. Lee Gil Rae, Human-Shaped Pine Tree (2015)
Location: Grosvenor Square, W1K 4AE
Presented by: Opera Gallery
Gallery: 134 New Bond St, W1S 2TF
Human-shaped Pine Tree (2015) by Korean artist Lee Gil Rae is a surreal, leafless tree, with spiralling branches which are unnatural by structure but organic by aesthetics. The pine tree is a core subject of Lee Gil Rae’s practice and is a symbolic tree of Korea. Many people desire to own them for spiritual reasons.
Inspired by shapes, colours and weathered surfaces showing the passage of time, the artist’s trees are made from steel and copper. This is a response to continued deforestation, depletion of natural resources, and environmental crisis.
3. Antony Gormley, ROOM (2014)
Location: The Beaumont Hotel, 8 Balderton Street, Brown Hart Gardens, W1K 6TF
Gormley’s ROOM is both a monumental sculpture and an architectural extension to the hotel. The interior, which forms the dark oak-clad bedroom of a one-bedroom suite, is approached up nine white marble steps, separated by a black velvet curtain from a pure white marble bathroom.
Gormley explains: "At night, the shutters allow total enclosure and provide total blackout. The very subliminal levels of light allow me to sculpt darkness itself."
4. Kojo Marfo, Treasure of the Heart (2022)
Location: 68 New Bond Street, W1S 1RR
Presented by: JD Malat Gallery
Gallery: 30 Davies Street, W1K 4NB
Kojo Marfo developed his interest in art and visual culture through the traditional Akan artifacts, sculptures and carvings that he was exposed to as a child in Ghana. Referring to himself as an Afro-Expressionist, the artist fuses Akan elements with Western Art references, as well as experiences of living New York and London, to engage with themes of identity and multiculturalism. The crucial message of acceptance which is at the heart of Marfo’s work, a message that is materialised in the embracing figures in the sculpture Treasure of the Heart (2022).
5. Andy Denzler, Selfie (2016)
Location: 63 New Bond St, W1S 1RQ
Presented by: Opera Gallery
Gallery: 134 New Bond St, W1S 2TF
The bronze sculpture Selfie (2016) by Andy Denzler is a part of the series by the same name that the artist started in 2016. He had an idea to depict the millennial generation lost inside the dream world of jpg images. Denzler is trying to break this fabricated aesthetic showing not a perfect but distorted world, with distorted people.
In this artwork, as well as in all his practice, Denzler reflects on whether it is possible to bridge together the polar opposites: real and online worlds, freedom and order, individuals and society.
6. Yoshitomo Nara, Peace Head (2021)
Location: Hanover Square, W1S 1HQ
Presented by: Pace Gallery
Gallery: 5 Hanover Square, London W1S 1HQ
Yoshitomo Nara’s Peace Head (2021) is installed in Hanover Square, opposite Pace Gallery. Measuring over 2.5m in width, the large-scale sculpture began as a palm-sized clay maquette before being cast in aluminium and covered in a white urethane coating, bringing his distinctive characters into three dimensions.
7. Bruce McLean, Handbag Heads (2004)
Location: 1 Hanover Street, W1B 2EL
Handbag Heads is a striking and colourful 5 x 10m steel sculpture on the external façade of One Hanover Street and was the first artwork to be formally commissioned by The Crown Estate as part of the regeneration of Regent Street. McLean has gained international recognition for his paintings, ceramics, prints, work with film, theatre and books.
8. Antoni Malinowski, Spectral Stream (2009)
Location: 46 Maddox St, W1S 1AY
Spectral Stream is made of all the light spectrum colours — from red through orange, yellow, green, blue to violet. The hand cut elongated tesserae are a direct translation of the paint strokes from the original Malinowski’s cartoon. The white gold square tesserae provide a light reflecting background that corresponds to the glass brick elevation of the building designed by Eric Parry Architects.
9. Joel Shapiro, Verge (2003 – 2008)
Location: 23 Savile Row, W1S 2ET
This suspended bronze sculpture by Joel Shapiro was a critical aspect of the redevelopment of 23 Savile Row in 2008. A special commission of the recessed central area, and created over a five-year period, the sculpture, titled Verge, (2003 – 2008), is made of bronze and measures approximately 4.8 x 4.3 x 4.8 meters. Suspended by stainless steel cables and flanked by the building on three sides, Verge seems to fl oat effortlessly above the street.
10. Henry Moore, Time-Life Screen (1952)
Location: 153 New Bond Street, W1S 2TY
When Henry Moore started on the Time Life Screen he saw it as an exciting problem to solve. He thought the screen should look like it was part of the architecture since it is part of the building, but also for the sculptures to project from it as if they were escaping.
11. Lawrence Holofcener, Allies (1995)
Location: New Bond Street, W1S 3SU
Allies, a bronze statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sitting ‘talking’ together on a bench in new Bond Street, was a gift from the Bond Street Association to the City of Westminster to commemorate 50 years of peace. Lawrence Holofcener, a sculptor with dual nationality created this landmark and it was unveiled on 2 May 1995 by Princess Margaret.
12. Elisabeth Frink, Horse and Rider (1974)
Location: New Bond Street, W1S 3SU
As Edward Lucie-Smith observed in 1994, ‘one of Frink’s best-known images is Horse and Rider (1974), commissioned by Trafalgar House and situated on the corner of Piccadilly and Dover Street in central London. Thousands of Londoners pass it every day, and it is one of the very few contemporary public sculptures in London that seems to be liked and appreciated by the public’.* In a special event on 26 June 2018, The New West End Company unveiled the newly restored and relocated Horse and Rider sculpture on the corner of New Bond Street and Burlington Gardens, now marking the Burlington Gardens entrance to the Royal Academy of Arts and a new landmark for Bond Street.
13. Antony Gormley, Cinch (2013)
Location: Burlington Arcade, W1S 3ER
In this work, Cinch (2013), space is displaced by a mass made up of refractory cells of hard material that engages the sky and its changing light. Rather than the known identities of individuals like those memorialised on the façade of the nearby Burlington House, this work is open to interpretation and conveys the idea of a human as a work in progress. Antony Gormley is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space.
14. Michael Speller, Nourish (2018)
Location: 5 Old Bond St, W1S 4PD
Presented by: Clarendon Fine Art
Gallery: 46 Dover Street, W1S 4FF
Michael Speller draws heavily on his own personal experiences in presenting the human condition. His distinctive, elongated figures, solitary or in groups, represent our environment, our families, our neighbours, and the society in which we live. Speller’s sculptures are interlinked and interdependent. Exploring the balance between conflicting forces and emotions, he creates work that is visually striking and reflects his great passion and enthusiasm for life.
15. David Breuer-Weil, Visitor 1 (2010)
Location: Berkeley Square, W1J 6EX
Presented by: E&R Cyzer Gallery23
Gallery: Bruton Street, W1J 6QF
David Breuer-Weil’s Visitor 1 and Visitor 5 are amongst the most iconic contemporary monumental British sculptures. The two works are being installed close to one another in Berkeley Square. According to Breuer-Weil: I am attacking the senses from different directions, one rises out of the depths, and one has fallen from the sky. These are images of outsiders, arrivals from my personal imaginary universe.
16. David Breuer-Weil, Visitor 5 (2011)
Location: Berkeley Square, W1J 6EX
Presented by: E&R Cyzer Gallery23
Gallery: Bruton Street, W1J 6QF
17. Neal French, Grosvenor Group (Terence Donovan, Twiggy and Shopper) (2014)
Location: Bourdon Place
Commissioned by Grosvenor Estates in connection with the opening of their new building on Grosvenor Hill. A passing shopper stumbles upon Terence Donovan photographing the model Twiggy near to his studio in 1960s Mayfair.
18. Banksy, Falling Shopper (2011)
Location: Bruton Lane, W1S 4EJ
Banksy’s iconic murals highlight components of human identity and behaviours, acting as a form of social commentary. Positioned high on the side of a building, the figure reaching for their shopping trolley appears to be actually falling. Reaching for the trolley containing some recognisable items such as wine and a necklace, the artist is highlighting a darker side to being consumed by luxury.
19. Jill Berelowitz, Moving Forward (2017)
Location: 45 Park Lane, W1K 4AE
Presented by: Opera Gallery
Gallery: 134 New Bond St, W1S 2TF
Moving Forward is both an inner and an outer journey. It is the creative resolution of body and soul. It is an individual and collective awakening that begins from this perfect moment. This gathering of nine is a visual representation of the archetype of gestation and rebirth. It reminds us of the global momentum as we all participate in birthing a new humanity. The figures are cast individually with no two alike and their gender is implied, if not explicit. The relationships between each figure is hinted to enable the viewer to perceive the dynamics of the group in their own way.