Henry Moore's Mother and Child: Block Seat sculpture in the foreground with Wakehurst's Elizabethan mansion behind

A friend mentioned that she’d seen a news piece about some Henry Moore sculptures being at Wakehurst. This sounded intriguing, so it got added to my list. Yesterday another friend and I paid a visit. Lovely to see the sculptures. Lovely to see them in an outdoor space. I very much love a sculpture garden and these worked in the same way. The ability to walk around them. To see them from different angles. And to see them respond to their environment.

Three bronze Wilde Leute figures by Paloma Varga Weisz standing in the meadow

The first sculpture we came across wasn’t a Henry Moore, it was one of the “and more” in the exhibition’s title. This featured three of Paloma Varga Weisz’s Wilde Leute characters.

Henry Moore's bronze Reclining Figure sculpture on a stone plinth

Henry Moore's dark bronze Reclining Connected Forms sculpture set among long grass and wildflowers

I was disappointed that there was no map or list giving an indication of how many sculptures there were, or where we’d find them. We managed to find all four Henry Moores. When I checked the webpage later, I discovered we missed an entire artist as we didn’t make it down to the Nothofagus Beech tree collection. It was a hot day so we limited our explorations.

Wide view across Wakehurst's meadow with Rana Begum's colourful Mesh installation visible in the distance

My friend and I enjoyed Mesh, by Rana Begum, because it seemed to change shape and colour depending on where in the gardens we were. We got up close to it to see the simplicity of its design, reminding us that effective doesn’t always mean complex. This followed on from a piece by the same artist I saw in Pallant House last month. More artist continuity in action. Love it!

The sculptures are there until next year, so perhaps a revisit is in order when it’s cooled down.