🇬🇧 Igor Mitoraj at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Héros de Lumière (Hero of Light, 1986) is a monumental 9-tonne Carrara marble sculpture permanently in the collection of Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), displayed on the Formal Terrace. Carved from the same white Carrara marble used by Renaissance masters like Michelangelo, the work depicts a fragmented heroic torso and head — Mitoraj's characteristic language of classical beauty interrupted by fracture and absence. YSP, winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2014, is the UK's leading open-air sculpture park and this is the only confirmed permanent Mitoraj outside London in the United Kingdom.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park opened in 1977 as the UK's first dedicated open-air sculpture park, and its permanent collection now spans 500 acres of historic parkland at the Bretton Estate near Wakefield. Héros de Lumière was completed in 1986, the same year Mitoraj participated in the Venice Biennale. The 9-tonne Carrara marble work is among the largest and heaviest pieces in the YSP collection. The park, winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2014, draws over 600,000 visitors annually — making it one of the most visited outdoor sculpture venues in the world.

The Bretton Estate, where YSP is situated, is a Grade II* listed landscape garden designed in the 18th century. The combination of formal terraces, woodland, lakes and open parkland provides the park's curators with an extraordinary range of settings for sculpture. Mitoraj's Héros de Lumière is placed on the Formal Terrace — the most architecturally disciplined part of the grounds — where its classical geometry and massive scale are in clear dialogue with the designed landscape around it. The Yorkshire Light — famously cool, often dramatic — gives Carrara marble a different quality here than it has under the Mediterranean sun.

Permanent Works