Public Sculpture of Norfolk and Suffolk: 16 (Public Sculpture of Britain) - Hardcover

Richard Cocke's scrupulously researched - not to say at times entertaining - contextual commentaries and the quality of the photography ably support the value of the book as a long-lasting source of reference. * The Burlington Magazine *

Public Sculpture of Norfolk and Suffolk combines a detailed catalogue of over three hundred entries, many with new information and outstanding photography, with an introduction setting the work into its historical background. Readers will be interested in early examples of civic and church monuments and notable finds, including two of the Coade stone Victories from the Nelson Monument in Great Yarmouth, J.B. Clesinger's Fighting Bulls at Lynford - one of the most important and least known French monumental sculptures in England - and the Ringsfield memorial to Princess Caroline Murat by a major, but unidentified, Italian sculptor. With clarity and readability, the volume will be attractive to a wide non-specialist audience. The introduction explores the reasons for the region's lack of enthusiasm for free standing statuary, with the exception of horses, above all, but not exclusively, at Newmarket. By contrast, architectural decoration flourished across the region, most notably in the Edwardian era with G.J. Skipper in Norwich, and in the new sea-side hotels and cinemas. The region has been enriched by private patrons: Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury at the University of East Anglia, Lord Cholmondeley at Houghton, Barbara Hepworth's gift to Snape at Benjamin Britten's request and Maggi Hambling's Scallop memorial for Britten at Aldeburgh. Memorials commemorate loss at sea, in the air (for the many USAAF bomb groups stationed in East Anglia) and on land (Boer 1st and 2nd World Wars), often with a common emphasis on the cost of war. Finally the millennium resulted in a new burst of civic commissions and a belated enthusiasm for commemorative statues.