{"id":795,"date":"2026-10-22T10:33:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T10:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/?p=795"},"modified":"2026-10-22T11:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T11:18:19","slug":"tommy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/2026\/10\/22\/tommy\/","title":{"rendered":"TONY CRAGG, Tommy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tony Cragg<\/a>, Tommy, 2013
Bronze
360 (h) x 290 x 220 cm<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

University of Gloucestershire has officially opened its new public Sculpture Park by unveiling <\/strong>artwork loaned by world-renowned sculptor and Turner Prize winner Sir Tony Cragg CBE.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inaugural sculpture, named Tommy<\/a>, has been installed at the University\u2019s Park Campus<\/a> in Cheltenham to provide an immersive, accessible art experience for students, staff and the local community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The installation marks a significant addition to the University\u2019s Creative Campus, one of the key teaching and learning hubs at Park, with the Sculpture Park designed to bring internationally recognised art to the local community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Tony\u2019s life as an artist started in Cheltenham in 1969, where he studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, one of the forerunners of University of Gloucestershire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Tony recalled: \u201cI had never been to art school or even met an artist before I went to study in Cheltenham. It was a huge adventure. With hindsight, the course was very structured, even academic, but in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now one of the world\u2019s leading contemporary sculptors, Sir Tony\u2019s work has been exhibited at more than 500 solo exhibitions over the past 50 years at major galleries and public spaces internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has maintained a busy teaching career, working as a Professor at the D\u00fcsseldorf Academy (1979-2001) and Professor for Sculpture at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin (2001-2006) before returning to the D\u00fcsseldorf Academy in 2006 as Director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this period, he was President of the Malkasten Academy for artists in the same city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Sir Tony runs a busy studio, a foundation and Waldfrieden, a large sculpture park with a full outdoor and indoor exhibition programme, which he established in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Tony was awarded the title of Knight Bachelor in Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s 2016 Birthday Honours for services to visual arts and UK-German relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Tony\u2019s sculpture Tommy, which has been loaned to the University until May 2031, is the first work of a series of artwork that will form the wider Sculpture Park over the coming months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designed as a landscaped space for reflection and exploration, the Sculpture Park will showcase important contemporary sculpture while acknowledging the natural environment of Park Campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sculpture Park builds on the University\u2019s growing research into Gloucestershire\u2019s sculptural heritage and aims to strengthen Cheltenham\u2019s reputation as a destination for arts and culture. It forms part of the University\u2019s wider Creative Campus at Park, a collaborative hub for arts education, research and public engagement. The campus is home to a connected community of artists and creators studying courses from fine art and graphic design to film and TV production, journalism, music, photography and computer games development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campus will be home to one of the biggest events in the academic calendar next month, the 2026 Degree Show (5 June) which showcases creative work from graduating students across the School of Arts, Culture and the Environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Angus Pryor, Executive Dean for Research and Head of the School of Arts, Culture and Environment, said: \u201cIt is a huge honour for us to be displaying \u2018Tommy\u2019, which is such a major work by an important British artist at Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are hugely grateful to Sir Tony Cragg CBE for his gesture of support for our work here at University of Gloucestershire. Cheltenham was where his own personal journey into art and artmaking began, just over 50 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cannot think of a more fitting sculpture for the new park at our Creative Campus. It will be a be a daily reminder both of his own special achievement and how studying the creative arts here can creatively inspire us all to greater things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Picture of Sir Tony Cragg:<\/strong> credit Ninadanilova, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sculpture Park’s inaugural sculpture, named Tommy, has been installed at the University\u2019s Park Campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":569,"featured_media":799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition","tag-sculpture-park-collection"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/569"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/galleries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}