Public art projects flourish in Chiswick, organised and funded by local residents and organisations.
There are four on Turnham Green Terrace, following a line north, from the Chiswick High Road to St Michael & All Angels Church.
Read: Connecting the dots on the trail of Chiswick’s artists – The ChiswickCalendar
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1. Hogarth’s statue
South side of Chiswick High Road, facing Turnham Green Terrace
The statue is the work of Jim Mathieson and was unveiled on 23 October 2001 by the editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop, assisted by David Hockney, patron of the statue appeal. The pug dog at Hogarth’s feet was unveiled last by a pupil from William Hogarth School.
Donations to support the scheme came from many private individuals but also from local businesses including Hogarth Health Club, the developers of Chiswick Park and Sainsbury’s Local. There were also two huge Hogarth birthday parties at Chiswick Town Hall, with food and drink and 18th century entertainments! Source: William Hogarth Trust
See more: Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society and London Remembers
2. W4th Plinth
On the TfL brick wall of the railway embankment at Turnham Green Terrace, to the south of Turnham Green tube station
The W4th Plinth is an art project curated by Abundance London. Every six months the large image on the TfL brick wall of the railway embankment at Turnham Green Terrace is changed, showcasing an exciting artwork, short-listed by Abundance and voted on by the public.
Source: Abundance London
The current artwork was unveiled on January 23rd 2024: Sonic Serenity: Chiswick Bridge and The Infinite by Giovanna Iorio.
Previous artwork: April 2023 Cristina Schek’s Ceiling in the Sky, unveiled by Dame Sian Phillips. The first artwork, displayed in September 2019, was Sir Peter Blake’s Chiswick Empire Theatre collage, commissioned for the Chiswick Timeline (below).
3. Chiswick Timeline: A History in Art and Maps
Underneath the bridges outside Turnham Green tube station
The Timeline is created from 16 enormous maps of the area, dating from 1592 to today, overlaid with works of art by renowned artists showing local landmarks. It includes works by William Hogarth, Johan Zoffany, JMW Turner, Camille Pissarro, Sir John Lavery, Eric Ravilious, Mary Fedden, Julian Trevelyan, Alfred Daniels, Marthe Armitage, and two specially-commissioned artworks by Sir Peter Blake and Jan Pienkowski. In 2018, Abundance London co-ordinated the design, funding and implementation of the artwork, which was crowdfunded by two councils, local businesses and individuals, and installed on a wall belonging to Transport for London.
See all the art and maps. Source: Abundance London
4. Enwrought Light: Sculpture by Conrad Shawcross RA, celebrating WB Yeats’ upbringing in Bedford Park
At the gateway to Bedford Park, to the west of St Michael & All Angels Church
Enwrought Light was unveiled by poet and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, on September 6th 2022, just yards from Yeats’s boyhood London home at the ‘gateway’ to the world’s-first garden suburb with its beautifully conserved Arts & Crafts environment.
The dazzling Yeats-inspired sculpture, by artist (and youngest Royal Academician) Conrad Shawcross RA envisions Yeats’s lines (set in silver in a Purbeck Stone plinth) from his poem He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven:
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light
Irish poet Cahal Dallat and the committee of the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project co-ordinated the design, funding and implementation of the artwork, which was crowdfunded by public donations. These paid for the artwork itself, the creation of schools’ Yeats/Bedford-Park workbooks, public lectures, a promotional video narrated by Ciarán Hinds and the development of the Discover Bedford Park with WB Yeats smartphone visitor experience.
Source: WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project
More artworks nearby
After completing the Trail, you may like to visit other public artworks nearby, in Bath Road:
the stained glass windows in St Michael & All Angels Church and the historic Willam de Morgan tiles in the Tabard pub over the road.
Read more about Bedford Park and its church and pub in ‘Betjeman and The Battle of Bedford Park’ on The Chiswick Calendar.