Grimsby Creates has provided £1,400 of match funding
Family Group Gosney legacy
Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, United Kingdom
Aim
To repair and restore Harold Gosney’s iconic sculpture, Family Group so it can once again be proudly displayed.
Working with other local groups such as WE1 and The Great Grimsby Docks Company, Grimsby, Cleethorpes and District Civic Society want to restore and display the iconic sculpture by Harold Gosney.
Harold Gosney became a student at Silver Street School of Arts and Crafts in 1954. He then went on to attend the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art where he was awarded the Slade School of Art drawing prize. In 1960, Gosney returned to teach at Silver Street, where he became deeply interested in sculpture.
Gosney’s work are on permanent display at Ripon, York and Chester cathedrals as well as York Art Gallery and Normanby Hall.
The Family Group is an early and important work by Gosney.
The controversial sculpture was commissioned for the new shopping centre in Immingham in 1965. The sculpture made headlines when it was officially unveiled, some praising it as a ‘bold ambitious project ‘ while others described the work as ‘shocking and thought provoking‘.
After the regeneration of the shopping centre the art work was not put back but instead put into storage where it has languished for a number of years. It is now in need of repair and due to its size continued storage may no longer be possible.
Harold Gosney, has agreed to mentor and supervise repairs providing an unbelievable opportunity to have the work restored with the involvement of the original artist.
The money will be used to repair the sculpture and for it to be temporarily displayed at Grimsby Docks while a place is found for permanent display in Immingham . Using archive materials provided by the artist , we will document the history of the sculpture and its restoration . This archive material will then be passed to the Lincs Inspire archive and Immingham Museum.
This project successfully funded on 14th March 2023