List of public art in Kensington

This is a list of public art in Kensington, a district in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London.

City of Westminster[]

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Artist / designer	Architect / other	Type	Designation	Notes
More images	Memorial to the Great Exhibition	Kensington Gore 51°30′01″N 0°10′38″W / 51.5004°N 0.1773°W / 51.5004; -0.1773	1863	Joseph Durham	Sydney Smirke	Statue with other sculpture	Grade II	Erected in June 1863 in the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society in South Kensington. Moved to its present site in the early 1890s.[1] Another cast of the statue of Prince Albert is in Saint Peter Port, Guernsey.[2]
	Lions	Imperial College Road, at the foot of the Queen's Tower	1887	?	Thomas Edward Collcutt	Sculpture		[3]
More images	Statue of Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala	Queen's Gate 51°30′05″N 0°10′49″W / 51.5013°N 0.1803°W / 51.5013; -0.1803	1891	Joseph Edgar Boehm	N/A	Equestrian statue	Grade II	Originally stood in Waterloo Place; moved to its current site in 1921. A replica of the statue to Napier in Kolkata. The boundary line with Kensington and Chelsea bisects the length of this statue.[4] In 2004 the artist Eleonora Aguiari wrapped the statue in bright red tape as a comment on Britain's imperialist past.[5]
	Memorial to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956	Façade of Ognisko Polskie, 55 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road	1960	Ferenc Kovács		Plaque with relief sculpture		[6]
	Scientific Diagrams and Equations	Blackett Laboratory, Prince Consort Road	1960	John Rattenbury Skeaping		Architectural sculpture		[7]
	Mosaic	Royal Albert Hall, South Porch 51°30′02″N 0°10′38″W / 51.500481°N 0.177305°W / 51.500481; -0.177305	2003	Shelagh Wakely (made by Trevor Caley)	Building Design Partnership (South Porch)	Mosaic	N/A	Installed on the pediment of the Building Design Partnership's new South Porch of 2003,[8] the 60,000-piece mosaic is inspired by chaos theory[9] and by the existing, Victorian frieze on the Albert Hall's façade.[10]
	Balustrade	Royal Geographical Society, Exhibition Road 51°30′04″N 0°10′29″W / 51.501086°N 0.174730°W / 51.501086; -0.174730	2004	Eleanor Long	Craig Downie	Glass balustrade	N/A	Images of contours, maps and landscapes are etched into the glass panels.[11][12]
	Velocity Wave[11]	Imperial College Sports Centre, Prince's Gardens 51°30′00″N 0°10′24″W / 51.499968°N 0.173379°W / 51.499968; -0.173379	2004–2006	Pat Kaufman	Arup Associates	Glass balustrade	N/A	The artist consulted scientists at Imperial College researching into the velocity wave patterns of different sporting activities. These patterns were etched into the glass panes at the entrance ramps and stairs to the sports centre, and infilled with resin and gold leaf. The balustrade is lit at night by white LED lights.[13]

Royal Albert Hall frieze[]

Detail of the frieze

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Friezes on the Royal Albert Hall.

The exterior of the Royal Albert Hall (built in 1867–1871 to the designs of Francis Fowke and Henry Young Darracott Scott) is embellished with a mosaic frieze composed of sixteen separate designs by multiple artists. This was assembled from 800 slabs prepared by attendees of the South Kensington Museum's mosaic class; the terracotta was manufactured by Minton, Hollins and Company. The designs are listed below in anti-clockwise order from the north.^[14]

Royal Geographical Society[]

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Artist / designer	Architect / other	Type	Designation	Notes
	Bust of Clements Markham	Courtyard	1921	F. W. Pomeroy		Bust	Grade II*	[15]
More images	Statue of Ernest Shackleton	Exhibition Road façade 51°30′05″N 0°10′29″W / 51.5015°N 0.17479°W / 51.5015; -0.17479 (Statue of Ernest Shackleton)	1927–1932	Charles Sargeant Jagger		Statue in niche	Grade II*	[16][17]
More images	Statue of David Livingstone	Kensington Gore façade 51°30′06″N 0°10′30″W / 51.50161°N 0.17498°W / 51.50161; -0.17498 (Statue of David Livingston)	1953	T. B. Huxley-Jones		Statue in niche	Grade II*	[15]

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea[]

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Artist / designer	Architect / other	Type	Designation	Notes
More images	Statue of Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland	Holland Park	1872	George Frederic Watts and Joseph Edgar Boehm	N/A	Statue	Grade II	Unveiled 1926.[18]
More images	Queen Victoria Monument	Warwick Gardens 51°29′49″N 0°12′15″W / 51.496871°N 0.204195°W / 51.496871; -0.204195 (Queen Victoria Monument)	1904	N/A	H. L. Florence	Commemorative column	Grade II	[19]
More images	Kensington War Memorial	Kensington Church Street, southern end	1922	F. W. Pomeroy	Major Hubert C. Corlette	War memorial	Grade II	Unveiled 1 July 1922 by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll.[20]
	Genius	Kensington Central Library	1958	William McMillan	E. Vincent Harris	Architectural sculpture	Grade II*	[21]
	Bust of Geoffrey Chaucer	Kensington Central Library	1958	William McMillan	E. Vincent Harris	Architectural sculpture	Grade II*	[22]
	Bust of William Caxton	Kensington Central Library	1958	William McMillan	E. Vincent Harris	Architectural sculpture	Grade II*	[23]
	Statue of a lion with the Royal coat of arms	Outside Kensington Central Library, facing Phillimore Walk	1958	William McMillan	E. Vincent Harris	Architectural sculpture	Grade II*	[24]
	Statue of a unicorn with the Royal coat of arms	Outside Kensington Central Library, facing Phillimore Walk	1958	William McMillan	E. Vincent Harris	Architectural sculpture	Grade II*	[25]
More images	Head of Invention	Outside the Design Museum	1989	Eduardo Paolozzi	N/A	Sculpture	N/A
	Head of the Stairs	Houghton Street	2000	Ivor Abrahams	N/A	Sculpture	N/A	[26]

North Kensington and Notting Hill[]

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Artist / designer	Architect / other	Type	Designation	Notes
	Coat of arms of the National Bank Limited (Azure a harp Or within an orle of bezants)	Pembridge Gardens, on side of Royal Bank of Scotland, Notting Hill Gate	1950s	?		Architectural sculpture (relief)		The National Bank was based in Ireland, and had a branch here. Its British operations were eventually acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1985.[27]
	Mosaic of Saint Sava	Façade of St Sava's Serbian Orthodox Church, Notting Hill	1952 c. 1952			Mosaic	N/A	[28]
More images	Statue of Saint Volodymyr	Holland Park Avenue 51°30′27″N 0°12′15″W / 51.5074°N 0.2041°W / 51.5074; -0.2041 (Statue of Saint Volodymyr)	1988	Leo Mol	N/A	Statue	N/A	Unveiled 29 May 1988. Commemorates the 1,000th anniversary of the Christianisation of Kievan Rus'. Later in 1988, another statue of the saint by the same sculptor was erected in Rome.[29]
	The Climber	On roof of 43–45 Notting Hill Gate	2000	Peter Logan		Kinetic architectural sculpture	N/A	All the moving parts of the sculpture had to be removed in 2013 after a piece collapsed and fell onto the pavement on 22 June that year.[30][31]
	Carnival Elephant	Outside Waterstone's, Notting Hill Gate	2003	Nadim Karam		Sculpture	N/A	[31]
	Two Carnival Figures	On roof of Waterstone's, Notting Hill Gate	2003	Nadim Karam		Architectural sculptures	N/A	[31]

South Kensington[]

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Artist / designer	Architect / other	Type	Designation	Notes
More images	Statue of Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala	Queen's Gate 51°30′05″N 0°10′49″W / 51.5013°N 0.1803°W / 51.5013; -0.1803 (Statue of Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala)	1891	Joseph Edgar Boehm	N/A	Equestrian statue	Grade II	Originally stood in Waterloo Place; moved to its current site in 1921. A replica of the statue to Napier in Kolkata. The boundary line with the City of Westminster bisects the length of this statue.[4] In 2004 the artist Eleonora Aguiari wrapped the statue in bright red tape as a comment on Britain's imperialist past.[5]
	Bust of Alfred Beit	Royal School of Mines	1910	Paul Raphael Montford	Aston Webb	Bust	Grade II	[32]
	Bust of Julius Wernher	Royal School of Mines	1910	Paul Raphael Montford	Aston Webb	Bust	Grade II	[32]
More images	Statue of Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell	Baden-Powell House, Queen's Gate	1961	Don Potter		Statue	N/A	Unveiled in 1961 by Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who was President of the Scout Association.[33] A preparatory model is in the collection of the Scouts Heritage Service in Gilwell Park, Essex.[34]
More images	Yalta Memorial (Twelve Responses to Tragedy)	Yalta Memorial Garden, Cromwell Road	1986	Angela Conner			N/A	Replaced original version of 1981, destroyed by vandals in 1982.
	Memorial to victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami	Darwin Centre courtyard, Natural History Museum	2011	N/A	Carmody Groarke Architects	Memorial	N/A	Unveiled 6 July 2011 by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.[35] 4.1m³ of granite with one corner cut away, the largest single block of stone to be transported in Great Britain since the building of Stonehenge. Michael Holland, the memorial's principal organiser, lost his mother, wife and daughter to the tsunami.[36]
More images	Statue of Alfred Russel Wallace	Outside the Darwin Centre 2 building, near the wildlife garden, Natural History Museum	2013	Anthony Smith	N/A	Statue	N/A	Unveiled 7 November 2013, the centenary of Wallace’s death, by David Attenborough. The statue depicts Wallace at the moment of his discovery of the golden birdwing butterfly in the Bacan Islands of Indonesia.[37]
	Statue of Béla Bartók	South Kensington tube station	2004	Imre Varga	N/A	Statue	N/A	The statue, a copy of one in Budapest, faces the house on Sydney Place where the composer stayed on several visits to London.[33]

Victoria and Albert Museum[]

Main entrance of the Victoria and Albert Museum, photographed in about 1960

Detail of two of Alfred Drury’s relief panels above the main portal. The full inscription is taken from Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses: “The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose”.

Statue of William Morris by Arthur George Walker on the Exhibition Road façade

See also[]

• List of public art in Kensington Gardens

References[]

Bibliography[]