Henry Moore Sculpture Stolen from Shawhead

Devastating news for the local art scene today as the world famous sculputures on the Keswick Estate have been targeted by thieves......The Scotsman takes up the story

Standing Figure - Henry Moore 1950

A valuable bronze artwork by Henry Moore has been stolen from an open air sculpture park.Standing Figure, created in 1950, was one of four Moore pieces in Glenkiln Sculpture Park, in Lincluden Estate by the Glenkiln Reservoir in Shawhead, Dumfries and Galloway.
The park also includes his world renowned King and Queen sculpture, and other works by Auguste Rodin and Jacob Epstein.

Police said the piece was worth a “high value”, and are appealing for anyone who saw any suspicious people or vehicles in the Glenkiln Reservoir area on these dates to contact them.

Standing Figure is among a string of works by the abstract artist, who died in 1986 aged 88, to be targeted by thieves in recent years. Two men were jailed for a year in 2012 for stealing a sculpture called Sundial and the bronze plinth of another work from the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation in Much Hadham. In 2010, Moore’s £45,000 painting Three Reclining Figures On Pedestals was one of three works of art worth a combined £230,000 stolen from a gallery in Broadway, Worcestershire.

The Henry Moore Foundation also carried out a security review following the theft of a two-ton piece called Reclining Figure in December 2005. The foundation was established by the artist in 1977 to encourage public appreciation of the visual arts.

His sculpture Knife Edge, which stands on Abingdon Green outside the Houses of Parliament, often appears in the background of television interviews and is believed to be one of the most televised works of art in the country.

For more on the sculptures at Glenkiln check out this lovely article by Castle Douglas' Mary Smith with great pictures by Allan Devlin