Displaying the Head of Victory

Head of Victory, Leeds War Memorial, Standing for the Fallen

(From left to right)
Fig 1: Head of Victory at Huddersfield Art Gallery [Installation view] Photograph © Jamie Collier, University of Huddersfield, 2015
Fig 2: Henry Charles Fehr Leeds War Memorial (in City Square), 1922 Photograph ID 200296_64583987 © Leeds Library and Information Service www.leodis.net
Fig 3: Juliet MacDonald Standing for the Fallen (detail), 2015 [Drawing/collage]

The Head of Victory is the only remaining section of the winged statue of Victory that once stood triumphantly at the top of the Leeds War Memorial. Created by the sculptor Henry Charles Fehr (1867-1940), the monument was installed in 1922 to commemorate those who died in the First World War. However in the decades that followed, the figure of Victory began to corrode and became increasingly unstable. It was removed from the memorial in the 1960s to avoid risk to the public. The head is now in the Leeds Art Gallery Collection, and has been very kindly loaned for the exhibition Thought Positions in Sculpture at Huddersfield Art Gallery. Here it is raised once more above viewers, flanked by two artworks that respond to the dual aspects of the memorial’s intended function, as a celebration of military victory and a monument for grieving families.

I

Historic Victory

II

Imagining Victory

III

Thinking Through Victory

References

List of References for Juliet MacDonald