Huge floating head returns to the Clyde
A CONCRETE and steel floating head sculpture, commissioned for the Glasgow Garden Festival of 1988, has returned to the River Clyde after 33 years.
The sculpture, by Richard Groom, weighing in at 27 tonnes and 7m long, was tracked down to a boatyard at Rothesay Dock East after the artist’s death in 2019.
It was constructed by out-of-work shipbuilders at the Govan Shipyard on the Clyde. Andy Groom, Richard’s brother, describes how Richard went on a naval architecture course to understand how ferrocement boats were built and the head took shape in steel mesh and cement around a boat hull.
In a project between Richard Groom’s Estate, the Sculpture Placement Group and Glasgow Science Museum, the head has been partially restored and is moored in the Canting Basin at Govan Docks beside the Glasgow’s Science Museum until October, as part of Glasgow Doors Open Day and Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Water. It’s hoped that a long-term home can be found for it.
The floating head was towed along the river by Offshore Workboats Ltd, who also moved the head into the Glasgow Garden Festival site 33 years ago.
Canting Basin was constructed between 1893 and 1896, part of the Prince’s Dock development on the south bank of the River Clyde. Prince’s Dock, apart from the Canting Basin and the Graving Docks, was filled during the 1980s for the development of the Garden Festival Site.