A Patriotic British Nobleman Wants to Build a 200-Foot-Tall Monument to Queen Elizabeth

A Patriotic British Nobleman Wants to Build a 200-Foot-Tall Monument to Queen Elizabeth

artnet News | Javier Pes

A sculpture three times the height of Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North will rise over the north of England—at least, it will if a patriotic British aristocrat has his way. Standing on a windswept hill and measuring 196 feet tall, the work is the brainchild of Terence Kearley, Third Viscount Devonport, who wants to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II. The low-key landowner, who is in his 70s and is not known for major contemporary art commissions, chose the spot on his Northumberland estate, specified the work’s height, and now aims to raise the £1 million ($1.35 million) needed to complete the so-called Elizabeth Landmark.

Three artists—Simon Hitchens, Colin Rose, and Peter Evans—have submitted proposals for the project. Now, the local community gets to have its say. The first of three community exhibitions featuring the artists’ designs opens today at Kirkwhelpington Village Hall. The project’s curator, Matthew Jarrett, tells artnet News that the winning work could be installed as early as 2020. In Jarrett, the viscount has a curator who knows how to make it happen: He worked on Gormley’s Angel of the North (1998), the towering sculpture near Newcastle, as well as Anish Kapoor‘s monumental structure Temenos (2010) in Middlesbrough…read more

Image: Viscount Devonport, with Cold Law, the proposed site of the Elizabeth Landmark sculpture in the distance