Bronze sculptures stolen from £1m city art trail

The bronze sculptures were stolen from a site in Wakefield on Thursday, the council said

A set of bronze sculptures installed as part of a £1m art trail in a city centre have been stolen.

Thieves removed five "key" pieces of artwork from plinths outside the Wakefield One building, Wakefield Council's headquarters, overnight on Thursday, the authority said.

The sculptures, titled The Auguries: Last Call, were by British artist Andy Holden and were installed in 2023.

Councillor Hannah Appleyard, the council's cabinet member for culture, leisure and sport, said: "The damage caused to this wonderful sculpture is just senseless."

The council confirmed West Yorkshire Police had been informed.

The sculptures, by Andy Holden, were installed outside Wakefield One in 2023

Appleyard said: "I would urge anyone with information to please contact police.

"It's very frustrating and sad that someone has wilfully destroyed something like this."

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Holden's work was said to represent the songs of native birds with rapidly declining populations, including the mistle thrush, skylark and swift.

Recordings of the birds' songs were turned into 3D waveforms and then cast in metal, with a QR code incorporated in each sculpture so people could listen to each bird's song.

Wakefield Council said West Yorkshire Police had been notified about the theft of the sculptures

Describing his creation last year, Holden said: "These sculptures will be melancholy - a time capsule of songs that might soon disappear without due care and never be heard again.

"They should act as totems to remind us how fragile our ever-changing relationship with nature is.

"The birds' songs memorialised as sculptures are songs that few human ears can now hear, but by reading the shape of the sculpture form we can reconstruct the sound in our mind."

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport funded the sculpture trail with the purpose of animating outdoor spaces with work by contemporary artists.

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