Allan Sly Sculptures, London

On my most recent visit to London I did a fair bit of walking around neighbourhoods I hadn’t spent much time in before. This lead to me taking photographs of two sculptures that turned out to be by the same sculptor. Allan Sly is an English sculptor and senior lecturer at Wimbledon College of Arts. The first sculpture I came across also happened to be one of his earliest public artworks. Located just outside Edgware Road Tube Station The Window Cleaner was installed in 1990 – he’s staring up at the tall Capital House building which has a lot of windows, and wondering how he’s going to manage them with his small ladder.

What proved to be the companion piece to The Window Cleaner is this statue which stands outside the main entrance to St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington called Getting Back on the Right Foot. It seems to star a man trying to get something out of his shoe. It was commissioned by the theatre director Nicolas Kent in honour of his parents.