David Lomax is a sculptor based at Bishopstone, near Swindon, Wiltshire where he lives with his family. His work is very much a celebration of the natural world focusing on his ability to understand a species and its place in our world. Many of his sculptures are in two pieces, one form relating to the other, often suggesting interplay between the two forms. His work is varied and draws inspiration from the landscape around him, such as “Mother and Child” which responds to the downs around Bishopstone; but he is also inspired by creatures and their place in our world, as his work on the elephant sculpture shows.

Picture Richard Wintle / Calyx Picture Agency ©

In the early 1990s the “Hoarusib Bull” was commissioned from David Lomax by Selim Zilkha to commemorate a famous bull elephant that lived on Namibia’s skeleton coast; highlighted by John Aspinall it was hoped that this tremendous sculpture would draw attention to the plight of elephants in the wild. It was cast in bronze at Pangolin Foundry near Stroud in Gloucestershire, from a plaster mould sculpted by David Lomax:-

“To describe it as a magnificent creation would do it scant justice. It is quite extraordinary – an elephant to the life, perfect in every deep wrinkle of its grey-brown skin and in the majestic serenity of its bearing. To relate that it is 12ft high and weighs 4 1/2 tons gives little idea of its bulk and splendour: it is simply huge, and has tremendous presence,” writes Duff Hart-Davis in the Independent in 1993.

For the full article see:-http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/country-matters-how-the-elephant-makers-packed-its-trunk-1555143.html

Move forward twenty five years and we pick up the story of this charismatic elephant … Lord and Lady Joffe visited their friend David Lomax in his workshop and the rediscovered moulds are discussed, resulting in a further commission. The moulds are then returned to Pangolin Foundry in Stroud where they are reassembled and the elephant is moved to Liddington, to a site on Lord Joffes land where it is refinished with a weather resistant finish to the plaster; a fitting tribute to the  intelligent elephant, the work of David Lomax and the patronage of Lord and Lady Joffe ….. see here for a short film by Create Studios of Swindon, telling the story of ‘Moving the Elephant’ which Creative Wiltshire is happy to have contributed to, making a local community very happy.

 For more information on the work of David Lomax visit his website http://davidlomaxsculpture.com/ 

Discover more about the unveiling of the elephant at http://liddington.org/wp/

Thanks to Richard Wintle of Calyx Picture Agency for permission to use his image