Harold Gosney is an artist and sculptor. Many of Gosney's commissioned works are in the public domain; notably at

York Art Gallery York Art Gallery is a public art gallery in York, England, with a collection of paintings from 14th-century to contemporary, prints, watercolours, drawings, and ceramics. It closed for major redevelopment in 2013, reopening in summer of 2015. T ...

and on permanent display in

Ripon Ripon () is a cathedral city and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Within the boundaries of the historic West Riding of Yorkshire, the ...

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

and

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

cathedrals.

Career

Gosney became a student at Grimsby School of Art in 1954. He completed their Foundation course with such success that, two years later, he was offered a place at the prestigious

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. He won several prizes whilst studying at the Slade, eventually specialising in theatre design. In 1960, Gosney returned to teach at the Grimsby School of Art. He became deeply interested in sculpture from this point onwards. Gosney has worked in wood and copper with favourite themes being birds, horses and the female form. He developed a unique technique for working with sheet metal in three dimensions, exemplified by the life-size ''Horse and Rider'', now permanently on display at Normanby Hall in North Lincolnshire. The majority of Gosney's early commissions were collaborations with architects and he has made a significant contribution to public art in

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town in Lincolnshire, England with a population of 86,138 (as of 2021). It is located near the mouth on the south bank of the Humber that flows to the North Sea. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes dir ...

. He is the artist responsible for the reliefs on the Abbey Walk car park, the large Grimsby seal by the entrance to the Grimsby Central Library and the Grim and Havelok themed copper relief on the side of

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store in Old Market Place. Gosney retired from teaching in 1992 and moved to

to concentrate on sculpture. As a rule, Gosney does not sell his work, but in 2017, to celebrate his 80th birthday and retrospective exhibition, he offered two lots for auction, with all proceeds being donated to the Stained Glass Trust in York.

Themes

Gosney's work is often inspired by classical and Renaissance art and themes drawn from ancient and modern mythologies. The human form and the horse dominate his subject matter and can be seen in many of his intriguing and remarkable sculptures and the beautifully executed drawings which he makes when first planning commissions. The artist has explained how his approach has changed over the years: "My first sculptures in the early 60's were in stone and were considerably inspired by the work of Henry Moore. When I experimented, first with cold cast metal and later with welding in steel and copper, I carried out a number of abstract pieces. However, I soon needed a different challenge and returned to work that was derived from observation and drawing, mostly inspired by human and animal forms. My work, whilst not overtly realistic, aims to consider the essence of the subject."

Awards

* Gosney was awarded the Slade School of Art drawing prize as a student.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gosney, Harold 20th-century British sculptors 21st-century British sculptors English male sculptors English contemporary artists 1937 births Living people