A previously unrecorded Hancock Sculpture in south-east London

Woodland Spirit

 

The sculptor of this piece, Woodland Spirit, is the famed artist Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock. Situated in Beckenham Park amid a boscage of evergreen and deciduous trees this woodland spirit is admired by art lovers and the general public. A short film of Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock’s almost complete oeuvre can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/52396543

Mr Hancock, of 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam, achieved fame in the 1960’s for his acting career but at the time his painting and sculpture was less well appreciated. Since the exhibition at The Foundry, https://www.atlaspress.co.uk/theLIP/dora-hancock.html , a stone’s throw from fashionable Hoxton Square, his status in the artworld has steadily risen with many young artists now being compared to the indomitable Mr Hancock.

Below, a still from the the documentary, The Rebel, directed by Robert Day with script by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, which charts Hancock’s life as a clerk in a London office and his decision to move to Paris to dedicate himself to his art.  

The Artist sculpting Aphrodite at the Waterhole,
was Woodland Spirit a companion piece?