Relief

25 South Street

Photograph by: London Remembers

Erection date: 1935

Inscription

25 {the house number}

{At the middle of the bottom edge:}
Reid Dick

{At the bottom right corner:}
35 {or possibly} 1935

{Are the 2 girls pushing the two bearded men with strange hair/headgear down to hell, to join the one already there? Why is another girl straddling the “25” spacehopper? And the 4 monkeys?}

Deborah Singmaster of Footnotes sent us a photo and asked if we had any information. We did some research (see below) but have failed to explain this extraordinary carving. We can't find any other work by Reid Dick that is so ebullient, and have no idea what the scene represents. Can anyone help?

Site: 25 South Street (1 memorial)

W1, South Street, 25

As well as this lovely (and puzzling) relief sculpture above the porch, there are three small carved squirrels above the ground floor windows, a reference perhaps to the owner's acquisitive habits?.

This private mansion was built in 1932-3 to designs by E. B. Musman, for Sir Bernard Eckstein. The iron and glass porch by W. Turner Lord Company arrived a bit later, in 1936.

Deborah tells us "In 1939 Musman commissioned Eric Kennington to carve a totem pole outside a pub called the Coment in Hatfield. Also Eckstein became Director of Kassala Cotton Co. Ltd, Sudan Plantations Syndicate, Sudan Salt Ltd. So the monkeys may be inspired by that African connection."

2014: Discovering London adds: A 2013 biography ("William Reid Dick, Sculptor" by Dennis Wardleworth) confirms that he did sculpt this relief but acknowledges that it is not typical of his work: "It is one of Reid Dick's playful reliefs ... However, it enters another world which Reid Dick was not to explore further, an orgiastic scene containing gods and nymphs and chimpanzees, crammed into the corners of the relief containing the number 25."

2017: Rosemary Mulady adds: "Sir Bernard is said to have kept 'monkeys' in his London House. Reid Dick provided the Eckstein tombs in Fairwarp Sussex."

2024: The house next door, to the left, is the Embassy Of The Arab Republic, with a pair of police officers posted outside. Taking our photos we anticipated problems, but they left us alone.