Historic Royal Palaces Awards Monumental Sculpture Commission to Kendra Haste

'Royal Beasts'

In June 2010 the artist was awarded a commission by Historic Royal Palaces to fabricate thirteen sculptures as part of an exhibition exploring the history of the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London. Made from her trade-mark material, galvanised wire, life-size lions, baboons, a polar bear and an elephant, will help tell the story of the exotic animals that were a popular tourist attraction at the Tower from the 1100s. In 1831-2 the remaining animals from the Menagerie were moved to Regents Park to help establish London Zoo. The commission will include one of the most famous Tower 'inmates', a polar bear (a gift from the King of Norway in 1251) whose collar and chain allowed it to fish for food in the Thames without escaping.

Accompanied by multi-media, this will be the first exhibition devoted to the Royal Menagerie and is scheduled to open at the Tower of London, a World Heritage Site, in May 2011.

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