The Sculpture Park was founded in 1998 with the help of John Mills the President of the Royal Society of British Sculpture.
We are very interested in meeting Artists new to us and seeing their work, as the demand for work on view is great. Almost straight after opening we had to despatch work to collectors in the Americas, New Zealand, all over the Continent and of course Britain and the Islands.
Every year the new exhibition is opened in Mid May by a celebrity. So far the following have done us the honour:
- Professor Robert Ward, Director of Sculpture at Bretton Hall, University of Leeds
- Nicola Godden ARBS, The accomplished sculptor
- Martine Gerardin , The Travel & Garden correspondent of Le Figaro
- Charles Saumarez Smith , Director of the National Gallery
- John Mills , President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors
- The Countess of Sandwich, President of the Garden Scheme of The Historic Houses Association of Great Britain
- Roddy Dudley-Smith, Guernsey National Trust
- Anthony Stones, President fo the Royal Society of Portrait Sculptors
- Alan Grieve, Director of Jerwood Foundation
The media have been more than enthusiastic with Country Life, Country Illustrated, English Garden, Country Landowner, Gardens Illustrated, Le Figaro, Interiors Illustré, even the Bangkok Times, etc all writing copiously about the project.
Peter de Sausmarez who Studied Art amongst other things at Radley College near Oxford went on to join the Army, and after serving with the Coldstream Guards in London, Windsor, Aden and Mauritius joined Christies the International Auctioneers where his love of art focused on Sculpture and Oriental Art . The Lack of vacancies did not permit him followingin those directions and so he joined the then brand new Wine department working under the Giants in the trade at the time, Michael Broadbent and Alan Taylor Restell.
He was head hunted by the Sunday Times who were starting an Auctioneers page.Life took another turn as he finished up as Sales Trainer to the outside sales force for the Times.
After doing a number of interesting things which included running a sales force for a local London Paper,property development, running a successful PR and marketing Company he came back to his Ancestral Home In Guernsey to keep it in repair by further opening it to a variety of aspects of Tourism in the summer months whilst being the British Agent for such famous Luxury Fashion houses at the time of Balenciaga, Nina Ricci ,Richard Carrier, Paula Klien etc in the Autumn and Winter.
It was not till he was introduced to two very successful sculptors Guy Portelli and Ev Meynell who sowed the idea of adding a Sculpture Park in the Grounds of Sausmarez Manor that the love of sculpture was rekindled.Much encouraged By John Mills the President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors he set about recruiting top notch sculptors to show in the island
Being the First Stately Home to have a Sculpture Park open to the public was an immediate success with Buyers flying in to to look and buy from all over Europe and Americans on those Early Cruise Ships that were just beginning to visit Guernesy. Some of the visitors were fellow Historic House owners and even a vineyard owner from Australia and a London Auction house came and took the idea home with them.
It was the gift of a new idea at the time, of a website by his eldest son William which was initially used as an Inventory cum Catalogue that changed his life so dramatically when people became more confident buying on line. Artists flocked to join and become a member of ArtParkS hearing of its international success boosting the site to being possibly the largest and most comprehensive dedicated Sculpture Website in Europe if not the World.
It now handles everything from large prestige commissions to small bronzes on a daily basis, with specifiers and buyers in one continent ordering from sculptors in an other halfway round the world, with the confidence born of repeated successes.