A British businessman is spending millions of pounds on commissioning 40 large street sculptures for the London Olympics.
Wilfred Cass, 83, an art collector and former chairman of Moss Bros, has decided to fund the works himself because he believes that the Olympic organisers are giving too little weight to the wider cultural elements of the Games. He told The Times that the best art could not be an afterthought, tacked on to a stadium or other sports centre at the last minute. It would take about three to five years to create the sort of sculptures that could show off London as a cultural centre, he said.
Although the 2012 Olympics is to include a cultural Olympiad, Mr Cass said that the organisers were still preoccupied with funding the Games. "If the Olympics people don't start now, which is unlikely, there won't be any quality pieces. I've tried to talk to them. I've not found anybody who wanted to talk. I suppose they've got other problems on their mind."
Rather than wait - "as people are doing now" - he has asked 40 artists to create works that would soar up to 12 metres in height, impressive enough not to be dwarfed by vast spaces and constructions.
Mr Cass said that he had set aside £3 million for the commissions, but he was prepared to double the sum.
He plans to lend or sell the works to developers and local authorities, and he has already begun talks with Wembley Stadium and the developers of King's Cross station.Most of the sculptors that Mr Cass has approached are British, including the Royal Academicians Tony Cragg, Phillip King and Bryan Kneale, but among the few from overseas is the American Thomas Ostenberg, who, at the age of 40, gave up a successful career as a banker to become an artist. Ostenberg, who is showing at La Galleria in Central London this month, is an appropriate choice as his works have a recurring sporting theme.
Mr Cass singled out Barcelona, Chicago and Berlin as cities that had commissioned impressive artworks for their streets. "You don't need to produce site-specific work. Sculptures of the highest quality will fit in anywhere," he said.
Art historians and museum directors condemned recently the quality of Britain's public art and called for a halt to the "free-for-all" in tasteless, poorly executed works. They dismissed the embracing couple at St Pancras station, in North London, as "truly horrific, lizard-like figures", and likened The Monument to the Unknown Construction Worker near the Tower of London to "a gigantic Village People-style navvy".
Mr Cass said that contemporary public art in London was "nothing to write home about". Over the past 15 years, he has invested £11 million in commissioning more than 160 large-scale sculptures from more than 120 British artists, including Sir Anthony Caro. When he sells the works, he gives the artists most of the proceeds.
In 2001 Mr Cass made a fortune selling Image Bank UK, which he set up in 1979 and which grew to become one of the largest suppliers of film and photography for the advertising industry.
He and his wife, Jeannette, then established the Cass Sculpture Foundation, which displays art by aspiring and established British sculptors in woodland he bought at Goodwood, near Chichester. In 2006 he was appointed CBE for services to art.
The Olympic artworks will go on show at the Goodwood sculpture park as soon as they are ready.
A spokeswoman for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games said: "It's not the responsibility of London 2012 to ensure that there's public artwork in boroughs across the UK... He needs to be talking to local authorities."
Article by Dalya Alberge. Originally published in The Times, 18th September 2008.
