Replica statue uproar

Press, 4 February 1987, Page 11

Replica statue uproar

NZPA staff correspondent London British sculptors are outraged at plans to make replicas of the statue of Eros, the winged archer who adorns Picadilly Square in London. The Fine Arts Society intends casting 10 replicas, using the original mould of the creator, Sir Alfred Gilbert. They will be made in aluminium like the original and the work will be done under the direction of George Mancini, who worked with Gilbert. The plan has been criticised as unethical by sculptors. The president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, John Mills, said he had been flooded with letters from members demanding action be taken.

“They all say that it is an outrage against the ethics of sculpture,” he said. Their displeasure arose because Gilbert is dead and naturally cannot supervise the new edition. In his lifetime he supervised the recasting of several of his works but his work on the details had ensured that each copy was unique, Mr Mills said. A late 1920 s recasting of Eros now stands in Liverpool’s Sefton Park. The Fine Arts Society has rejected the sculptors’ criticism. Its managing director, Andrew Patrick, said the work would be of the highest quality. He pointed out that the society had been Gilbert’s agent for the last years of his life. “If a work was intended to be unique it would be chipped in stone,” he said.