Awakening Sculpture, Roper's Garden

Bronze figurative sculpture, signed G Ledward 1915, cast 1922-1923 and installed 1964 as part of the garden designed by Peter Shepheard of Bridgwater, Shepheard & Epstein.

MATERIALS: Bronze-cast sculpture fixed to a cement pedestal with cement planter border.

PLAN: square pedestal with cut-away corners bordered with a square planter.

DESCRIPTION: female nude with arms outstretched, naturalistically rendered. The sculpture is 1.85m in height and is elevated on a slender pedestal to which it is permanently fixed (giving a total height of around 3m). The sculpture is bordered by a raised, square cement planter (around 1.5 x 1.5m), creating a flowerbed around the pedestal and integrating the sculpture within the wider garden design. The representational figure has a strong counterpoint in Jacob Epstein's abstract female figure, a fragment of an unfinished relief which since 1972 has been positioned on the east side of Roper's Garden.