The Foundation is dedicated to:
It is assembling a collection of original drawings, maquettes and plaster casts for existing public sculpture. All of these will be available for study purposes while a selection, changed on a regular basis, will be exhibited in the Foundation Gallery.
The practical studio subjects available will be:
Non-practical subjects will include:
Full-time residential and part-time courses at professional and amateur levels can be offered in all subjects. The studios and gallery are open to the public on a regular basis. There are regular school visits, and open classes in life drawing will be conducted on a weekly basis.
More extensive premises are now required, including an exhibition gallery, archive and storage space, office and between four and six well-lit studios. The GLAF co-operates with other similar establishments such as the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association.
Gerald Laing, on the mission of the Gerald Laing Art Foundation:
"Public sculpture is often taken for granted, and if it is moved sometimes its sudden absence will be noticed more than its presence. Nevertheless its contribution to the landscape, both built and rural, is significant. It can bring focus, rhythm, order and identity; it might be a source of information and commemoration, or even better a stimulus for philosophical contemplation. At its best, it can be sublime. If it causes the passer-by to pause and think, it is successful.
Individual sculptures have their own anecdotal mythologies; the struggles of patronage and creation, the drama of casting, carving and installation; the consummation of unveiling and the subsequent reactions. Idiosyncratic events and details also add to the richness of association. For instance, the bronze equestrian statue of Charles I now at the head of Whitehall was sold to a Covent Garden bronze founder at the coming of the Commonwealth. He buried it in his garden while claiming to have melted it down in order to cast commemorative medallions of Cromwell. After the Restoration it was retrieved and erected on its present site.
On a more positive note, the marble statue of Washington by Houdon has one of the waistcoat buttons missing – this done deliberately to reinforce the idea of Washington as a man of the people, as imperfect as you or me. My own sculpture of Sherlock Holmes – the Conan Doyle Memorial in Edinburgh – has written around the bowl of his Petersen pipe the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”. These types of anecdotes should be more generally known because they enliven and enhance the works to which they refer.
Public sculpture escapes the vagaries and exploitations of the art market because it is not for sale and is therefore of no interest to dealers. Artists of every period who have made public sculpture may or may not have a body of work which is valued in the arena of the art market; if they have, then the existence of public works will add to their reputation, and in that case the maquettes and drawings which were a necessary part of the creation of the public work may have a commercial value. But many successful public sculptors are little valued in the galleries, and their drawings and plaster casts often remain in some damp garden shed of their descendants, or scattered even more broadly and ignominiously.
One of the objectives of the Gerald Laing Art Foundation is to provide a refuge for these artefacts in order to preserve them and make them available for study. This initiative will be an important part of a more general intention, which is to increase public awareness of, and appreciation and understanding of, the public sculpture of all ages with which we are surrounded. The Public Monuments and Sculpture Association is making an outstanding contribution in this respect in carrying out its nationwide survey of public works and in encouraging interest in the subject. The GLAF does not intend in any way to attempt to duplicate this invaluable work, but rather to support and complement it by providing space for the archive and particularly by teaching the practical studio and engineering skills required to make public sculpture which will endure and wear well in every respect.
It is expected that this will result in a more informed and critical approach to the commissioning of future public sculpture."