Portfolio - Napoleon Garden

Napoleon Garden – a space for contemporary sculpture

Since 1997 a different sculpture has been sited in the Napoleon Garden, Holland Park, London, every year, and has stood there while the seasons changed around it. To date the Garden has shown the work of: Beth Cullen, David Nash RA, Stephen Cox, Edward Allington, Bryan Kneale RA, John Gibbons, Michael Lyons, Ian Dawson, Simon Hitchens, Graham Hudson and Rupert Ackroyd.

The Garden is thought to have been named after a bust (since lost) of the Emperor Napoleon by Canova. In recent years a sculpture of Eric Gill's, known as The Virgin and dating from around 1910, stood there, but it was weathering badly and had to be moved. As Holland Park had a tradition of showing sculpture, and one had always been sited in the Napoleon Garden, it seemed a pity to move the Gill piece and leave an empty space. Anna Stamatiou proposed an annual exhibition of contemporary sculpture for the small, discrete Garden, and this concept was adopted by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which now funds the annual exhibition. The Napoleon Garden is freely accessible to the public within daylight hours.

Anna Stamatiou is its Curator.