'Youth', Sculpture On Circular Brick Plinth In The Garden

'Youth', a sculpture by Daphne Hardy-Henrion, is a concrete work on a steel armature set on a circular brick plinth in the garden at No. 6 Bacon's Lane, Highgate.

The sculpture was made in 1951 for the Festival of Britain and originally stood outside the '51 Bar, designed by architect Leonard Manasseh at the Festival site on the corner next to County Hall. It depicts an attenuated figure of a young woman with one upstretched arm and one open palm. The sculpture is a unique achievement in casting concrete so thin without cracking.

When the Festival ended, the Ministry of Education rejected the work as damaged and refused to take it. Manasseh and Hardy secured it in early 1952 to prevent its removal to the Arts Council's depot at Langley Airfield, where it would almost certainly have been neglected and destroyed. The sculpture remained in storage until 1959, when it was installed on its present site in the brick-paved garden of Manasseh's home, which he had just completed. Manasseh also designed the raised garden setting.

The sculpture responds well to its setting overlooking Highgate Cemetery. It is a very rare surviving work of art from the Festival of Britain and marks the important collaboration between architect and artist.

Daphne Hardy-Henrion (1917–2003) was a figurative sculptor who trained at the Royal Academy Schools, London, from 1934 to 1937, winning the gold medal and travelling scholarship. She studied in France and Italy before establishing herself as a sculptor when abstraction was dominant. Influenced by classical and Italian quattrocento sculpture, she was known for sensitive portraits, particularly terracotta busts of children. Her notable associations included a relationship with Arthur Koestler, who featured their life together in his 1941 novel Scum of the Earth, and later marriage to designer FHK Henrion. Her works include a memorial to victims of Belsen (1946) and a portrait of Haverhill, Suffolk. She exhibited from 1946 onwards, appearing in the 1953 'Unknown Political Prisoner' exhibition and the Arts Council touring show 'Sculpture in the Home'.

Leonard Manasseh (born 1916) studied at the Architectural Association and won the subsidiary News Chronicle schools competition in 1937. Following war service, he worked for Hertfordshire County Council and Stevenage Development Corporation before involvement with the Festival of Britain. From 1950 he was in private practice but spent most of the 1950s teaching at the Architectural Association as head of the preliminary school. For the London County Council in the early 1960s, he designed Rutherford school (now Lower Marylebone School, 1959–60, listed Grade II*) and Furzedown Teachers' Training College, Tooting (1961–65). His most extensive commission was the Montagu Motor Museum at Beaulieu, where he collaborated with planner Elizabeth Chesterton.