Physical energy: G.F. Watts and transformations in late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century sculpture

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Recent research confirms Watts's importance to Victorian painting. His lesser sculptural production remains marginalised. My project will examine the sculpture's unique but undervalued position in British art. Developing independently-conceived public monuments and non-naturalistic form/ surface, Watts's sculpture rejected contemporary norms. I advance new evidence and arguments explaining his unconventional approach, epitomised by Physical Energy- a colossal un-commissioned monument of contested ideological and aestheticidentity, sited in three locations- including Kensington Gardens.(1907).A single-authored book, exhibition and other projected outputs will examine this work in detail, relating it to current issues in public sculpture and the problematic status of monuments in a multi-cultural context.