| Scallop | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| Artist | Maggi Hambling |
| Medium | Stainless steel |
| Subject | Benjamin Britten |
| Dimensions | 3.7 m(150 in) |
| Weight | 3.5 tons |
| Location | Aldeburgh, Suffolk |
| 52°09′38″N1°36′21″E / 52.16053°N 1.60587°E | |
Scallop is a 2003 work by British artist Maggi Hambling. It is located on Aldeburgh beach, Suffolk, in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is a tribute to composer Benjamin Britten. [1]
Hambling commissioned local business J. T. Pegg & Sons LTD to create the sculpture. [2] It is made from stainless steel and is 3.7 metres in height and weighs 3.5 tons, appearing as two halves of a seashell. The sculpture features a quote from Benjamin Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes : “I hear those voices that will not be drowned.” [1]
Hambling was not paid for her time working on the sculpture and funded manufacturing costs with her own money and sales of her artwork. [3] Hambling intended the piece to be interacted with, climbed on, sat on, "made love" under, and used as a shelter. [3]
The sculpture was unveiled on Saturday 8 November 2003 by former culture secretary Chris Smith. [4]
Reaction to the sculpture was mixed. Scallop was named the best public sculpture in Britain and received the Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture in 2006. [5] [6] However negative criticism has arisen surrounding the sculpture’s position in an area of outstanding natural beauty with critics claiming that it has ruined views of the seafront. Following the unveiling of the sculpture, some Aldeburgh residents formed a campaign group calling on Suffolk Coastal District Council to have the sculpture removed to another location. [7] Hambling defended her sculpture as made “for that particular place in juxtaposition with the sea, and that is where I want it to stay.” [7] The sculpture has also been the target of repeated vandalism. [7]
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in the county of Suffolk, England, north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and remains the centre of the international Aldeburgh Festival of arts at nearby Snape Maltings, which was founded by Britten in 1948. It also hosts an annual poetry festival and several food festivals and other events.
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS is a British sculptor who has produced many acclaimed works, among which are several designs for British coinage and the memorial statue of Princess Diana at Kensington Palace in London unveiled on her 60th birthday in 2021.
Sizewell is an English fishing hamlet in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It belongs to the civil parish of Leiston and lies on the North Sea coast just north of the larger holiday village of Thorpeness, between the coastal towns of Aldeburgh and Southwold. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the town of Leiston and belongs within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB. It is the site of two nuclear power stations, one of them still active. There have been tentative plans for a third station to be built at the site.
Peter Grimes, Op. 33, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Montagu Slater based on the section "Peter Grimes", in George Crabbe's long narrative poem The Borough. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional small town that bears some resemblance to Crabbe's – and later Britten's – home of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on England's east coast.
Margaret ("Maggi") J. Hambling is a British artist. Though principally a painter her best-known public works are the sculptures A Conversation with Oscar Wilde and A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft in London, and the 4-metre-high steel Scallop on Aldeburgh beach. All three works have attracted controversy.
Snape Maltings Concert Hall is an arts complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, England. It is best known as one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival. It is now one of two headquarters for Britten Pears Arts, with the other being The Red House.
The River Alde and River Ore form a river system in Suffolk, England passing by Snape and Aldeburgh. The River Alde and River Ore meet northwest of Blaxhall. From there downriver the combined river is known as the River Alde past Snape and Aldeburgh, and then again as the River Ore as it approaches Orford and flows by a shingle spit before emptying into the North Sea.
The Royal Society of Sculptors is a British charity established in 1905 which promotes excellence in the art and practice of sculpture. Its headquarters are a centre for contemporary sculpture on Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, London. It is the oldest and largest organisation dedicated to sculpture in the UK. Until 2017, it was the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
Steuart John Rudolf Bedford was an English orchestral and opera conductor and pianist.
Chinwe Ifeoma Chukwuogo-Roy MBE was a visual artist who was born in Awka (Oka), Anambra state, Nigeria, but spent much of her young life in Ikom on the Cameroon border, before moving back to the family home at Umubele in Awka. She lived in Britain from 1975. Her paintings, prints and sculptures are predominantly figurative, in the genres of portraiture, still-life, landscape and narrative subjects. She won international attention in 2002 for being the first of only two Nigerian artists to have been allowed to paint official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II.
Britten Pears Arts is a large music education organisation based in Suffolk, England. It aims to continue the legacy of composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, singer Peter Pears, and to promote the enjoyment and experience of music for all. It is a registered charity.
The Sea Cabinet is a song cycle and musical theatre piece by British singer-songwriter Gwyneth Herbert about "memory, obsession, love, and the sea". It is also the title of her sixth album, featuring a studio performance of the song cycle, which was released on 20 May 2013 and was critically acclaimed, receiving four-starred reviews in The Financial Times and The Independent and a 4.5-starred review in All About Jazz. The music's sound has been described as a blend of "Weimar cabaret and English music-hall stylings, with disquieting touches of avant-garde jazz".
The Haven, Aldeburgh is a 20.2 hectare Local Nature Reserve in Aldeburgh in Suffolk. It is owned by East Suffolk Council and managed by the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is in the Leiston - Aldeburgh Site of Special Scientific Interest and Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Jonathan Alistair James Reekie has been the Director of Somerset House Trust since 2014. During this time the renovation of the historic site has been completed including the launch of Somerset House Studios, helping establish Somerset House as “London’s Working Arts Centre”, home to a creative community in central London. Reekie’s overseen the expansion of the cultural programme including PJ Harvey’s Recording in Progress with Artangel, Björk Digital, Big Bang Data, Perfume, Get Up Stand Up Now. In 2019 Reekie co-curated with Sarah Cook, the exhibition 24/7, a wake up call to a non-stop world, based on the book by Jonathan Crary.
A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft is a public sculpture commemorating the 18th-century feminist writer and advocate Mary Wollstonecraft in Newington Green, London. A work of the British artist Maggi Hambling, it was unveiled on 10 November 2020.
Rita Thomson was a Scottish nurse who looked after the composer Benjamin Britten and the singer Peter Pears at their home in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England.
Ian Greville Tait was a British medical doctor who spent most of his career as a general practitioner (GP) in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. He was a major figure in the modernisation of general practice in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s. According to Stephen Lock, former editor of the BMJ, Tait's work "helped transform general practice into a major medical specialty, giving family physicians a status equivalent to hospital consultants."
