Brick Man was an Antony Gormley sculpture proposed in the 1980s for the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.
A male human figure standing over 100 feet (30 m) high, it would have stood on a triangle of land bounded by railway lines in the Holbeck area of the city, greeting travellers arriving at Leeds railway station. It would have cost £600,000 and been the largest sculpture in the UK at the time.
The sculpture was one of twenty designs produced in response to a competition to find an artwork for the site, but the proposal was ultimately rejected by Leeds City Council in 1988. Conservative councillor Richard Hughes-Rowlands said at the time: "If Mr Gormley is talking about it [Brick Man] going somewhere else, my eyes won't exactly be weeping tears."[1]
Gormley has blamed "lack of nerve" for the rejection of his idea, adding: "I think of it still as my best attempt to allude to the collective body."[2] The idea of an iconic landmark sculpture of the human form later saw the light of day in Gormley's Angel of the North.[3]
A maquette for the sculpture can be seen in Leeds City Art Gallery.[3]
References
edit- ^ "Where to now for cultural soul of Leeds?". Yorkshire Post. Yorkshire Post Newspapers Ltd. 14 March 2008. Retrieved 11 July 2008.
- ^ "Modern art: Ask Antony Gormley". BBC. 14 May 2000. Retrieved 11 July 2008.
- ^ a b "A missed opportunity?". BBC News. Retrieved 30 September 2019.