Platforms Piece consists of four bronze sculptures of commuters at Brixton railway station by the British artist Kevin Atherton. The original three sculptures were completed in 1986 with a fourth statue, Joy II, added in 2023. [1]
Platforms Piece consists of four bronze sculptures of commuters at Brixton railway station by the British artist Kevin Atherton. The original three sculptures were completed in 1986 with a fourth statue, Joy II, added in 2023. [1]
In 1985 the Public Art Development Trust suggested to British Rail that they commission a piece of art for Brixton railway station. The sculptures were part of the £1m Brixton Station Improvement Scheme, which was devised by the London Borough of Lambeth, British Rail, and the Department of the Environment. [2]
Atherton, the artist, wanted his three figures to represent the real inhabitants of Brixton, and made sure to choose three models who had personal connections to Brixton: Peter Lloyd, Joy Battick [3] and Karin Heistermann. [4] At the time, Battick and Lloyd worked at the Brixton Recreation Centre, [5] across the road, in the direction of which both of their statues were facing (Battick's has since moved).
Atherton made the bronze statues using the lost-wax casting process, having made plaster moulds of his three models in a disused ticket office on the station platform (converted into a studio for his use). [6]
The sculptures were unveiled by Sir Hugh Casson, who had also been on the selection panel that chose Atherton's pitch for the job, on 30 June 1986, once the station had been renovated. Platforms Piece won the Association of Business Sponsorship of the Arts Industry Year award for the best commission in any medium in 1986. [7]
In November 2016, Platforms Piece was given listed status by Historic England, which claimed that two of the figures were the first public sculptural representations of black British people in the UK. [8] However, this claim is disputed due to the sculpted representation of George Ryan in a relief panel on the plinth of Nelson's Column in London, dating from the 1860s. [9]
In 2016 the statues forming 'Platforms Piece' were temporarily removed for refurbishment and returned to the station in January 2023. [10] At the same time, Joy Battick, one of the original models, was invited to model for a new statue, Joy II, to accompany the original statues. The two statues of Joy Battick face one another across the railway at the South end of the platforms. The statues of Karin Heistermann and Peter Lloyd face one another at the North end of the platforms.
Sir William Hamo Thornycroft was an English sculptor, responsible for some of London's best-known statues, including the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Palace of Westminster. He was a keen student of classical sculpture and was one of the youngest artists to be elected to the Royal Academy, in 1882, the same year the bronze cast of Teucer was purchased for the British nation under the auspices of the Chantrey Bequest.
Brixton is a London Underground station on Brixton Road in Brixton in the London Borough of Lambeth, South London. The station is the southern terminus of the Victoria line. The station is known to have the largest London Underground roundel on the network. The next station is Stockwell.
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The Rugby–Birmingham–Stafford line is a railway line in the West Midlands of England. It is a loop off the West Coast Main Line (WCML) between Rugby and Stafford, via the West Midlands cities of Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. The direct route between Rugby and Stafford is the Trent Valley line.
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East Brixton railway station was a railway station in Brixton, south London. It was opened as Loughborough Park by the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway in 1866. Regular passenger service was the South London line from London Victoria to London Bridge terminal stations in central London. Initially provided with a steam passenger service, competition from electric trams caused a conversion to overhead line electric operation in 1909. The station became part of the Southern Railway in 1923 and overhead line electrification was swapped for third rail in 1928. The station lost patronage after the opening of Brixton Underground station in 1971. There was a fire at the station in 1975 and it was closed by British Rail in January 1976. The station was located next to the rail bridge over Barrington Road, near Coldharbour Lane. Since 2012 London Overground trains pass through the site of the former station without stopping and there has been some campaigning to reopen it.
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Media related to Platforms Piece at Wikimedia Commons
