The Scottish Military Research Group - Commemorations Project

Adam Brown

I came across this website the other day

http://www.pmsa.org.uk/

"The Public Monuments and Sculpture Association was established in 1991 to further the cause of outdoor statues, sculpture and commemorative monuments nationwide. To achieve its aims – to increase public awareness, understanding and enjoyment of public art – the PMSA has undertaken a wide range of projects"

I thought our forum might be of interest to the PMSA members & website visitors so I've contacted them and they are going to add a link to our forum on their links page.

It's only fair that I reciprocate!

They are involved in a very good project which members of this forum should be aware of

Theft Alert! – the PMSA, War Memorials Trust and UK National Inventory of War Memorials are working with other leading institutions to alert members of the public to the escalating problem of art theft from public places. One objective is to compile an online database of stolen works, together with image and description.

Adam

Adam Brown · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 12:54 pm Post subject:

From the PMSA website:

PUBLIC SCULPTURE: WHAT COUNTS

What counts as public, or outdoor, sculptures and monuments in the PMSA? We count landscape or urban features that are sculptural and/or commemorative, or both. Not buildings, although we count commemorative clock towers, fountains, road markers (if they are substantially commemorative or sculptural). Because the prehistoric period is a different specialisation, we date the works roughly from the Stuart period.. However, Oxford and Cambridge show medieval sculptures over college gateways, and a small number of medieval sculptures can be seen in London. The three remaining Eleanor Crosses, their bodywork and sculptures heavily restored, date from the thirteenth century. But earlier sculptures – Celtic, Anglo-Saxon or Roman – do not come into the PMSA’s field.

We do not count church monuments, or sculptures and monuments in cemeteries and churchyards unless they are publicly-subscribed, commemorative pieces that happen to have been sited there. We are conscious of the great importance of these latter examples but for the time being the PMSA is content for the specialists in these extensive subjects to support their own.

The PMSA recognises, also, the importance of war monuments as part of the tradition of public commemorative sculptures and monuments. We have a sister-relationship with the National Inventory of War Memorials and with the War Memorial Trust (see Links).

There are, and always will be, anomalies. Some of us, for example, feel that Epstein's superb St Michael and the Devil on the front of Coventry Cathedral has such an impact on the street scene that it should count in the PMSA as a public sculpture. Some would count the contents of sculpture parks and the landscaped surroundings of stately homes open to the public, such as Rousham (Oxfordshire) or Stowe in Bucks. Some sculptures on private estates such as Sandringham, where Adrian Jones's sculpture of Edward VII's favourite race horse Persimmon can be seen from the public highway, could be counted as public sculpture, since they too are in the public eye.

Note In the National Recording Project volumes, these criteria vary slightly from volume to volume.

dhubthaigh · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 1:02 pm Post subject:

Well done Adam.