Bronze, marble and granite sculptures are prominently displayed across the grounds of RPA – connecting and celebrating art, heritage and healthcare.

 

With all the pomp and ceremony expected of the time, Lady Margaret Wakehurst unveiled the statue of Imhotep in November 1938 with over 500 people in attendance. In the designing of Gloucester House, provision had been made for the erection of a statue in the front of the building, and so Stepnan Pokoara was commissioned to create a life-size bronze statue of Imhotep, based on the statuette in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

Imhotep (ca. 2670 BCE) was an Egyptian polymath, an expert in many areas of learning, and was best known as the architect of King Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara. He was the only Egyptian aside from Amenhotep to be fully deified, becoming the god of wisdom and medicine. It was thought the statue would be a source of inspiration to RPA medical and nursing staff and would give comfort and hope to in-coming patients as they passed by.

In Gloucester House they will receive the benefit of the accumulated medical and surgical knowledge of over 4700 years.

RPA Gazette, 1938

Installed at the entrance to RPA Women and Babies, the 2019 Bronze Baby sculpture was donated in honour of artist Alan Crawford’s twins, Matthew and Elizabeth, born at King George V Memorial Hospital for Mothers and Babies in 1976. The sculpture was cast in the late 1980s, using a traditional bronze casting technique that dates back thousands of years. The marble pillow on which the baby rests, was created by sculptor Dan Lake.

It’s been at our home for a long time. But I always thought that it belonged in a hospital. It felt like that was the right place for it.

Barbara Crawford, 2019

Two three metre high bronze statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert dressed in robes of state are mounted on the pediments of the Queen Victoria and Prince Albert Memorial Pavilion Wards. They were unveiled in 1904 by His Excellency the Governor, Sir Harry Rawson and Lady Rawson in celebration of the opening of Queen Victoria Memorial Pavilion.

They consist of heroic figures in bronze, from the studio of Mr James White, of Annandale, and represent her Majesty, and the Prince Consort in their robes of State.

Prince Alfred Hospital Gazette, 1904