| Still Water | |
| Image Upright: | 1 |
| Artist: | Nic Fiddian-Green |
| Type: | Sculpture |
| Material: | Bronze |
| Subject: | Horse |
| Height Imperial: | 33 |
| Metric Unit: | m |
| Imperial Unit: | ft |
| City: | Achilles Way, London, England |
| Coordinates: | 51.5129°N -0.1596°W |
| Mapframe: | yes |
| Mapframe-Zoom: | 13 |
Still Water is a large public sculpture in bronze of a horse's head by Nic Fiddian-Green, dating to 2011. It is located at Achilles Way, near Hyde Park Corner in central London, and was initially installed at Marble Arch. The work remains owned by the artist, and is on loan to Westminster City Council.
As inspiration for the work, the Marble Arch Partnership explains that the artist's "passion for the equine head began in 1983 as a student at Chelsea College of Arts when he was sent on a visit to the British Museum to seek inspiration. He encountered the Elgin Marbles and was struck by the horse of Selene, a remarkably well preserved fifth-century BC carving, which would become the foundational inspiration throughout his career".
Fiddian-Green later reflected that "capturing the skill, vitality, balance and beauty, so evident in these Greek carvings is my continued aim". The artist works in clay, plaster, beaten lead and marble, and oversees the casting of the sculpture into bronze himself.
The 33feet piece was commissioned to replace an earlier and similar, but slightly smaller, work, Horse at Water XV, which was temporarily installed on the site in 2001. That earlier work was moved to Daylesford, Gloucestershire, the home of Sir Anthony and Lady Carole Bamford, who had commissioned it.[1] [2]
In 2012, Fiddian-Green cleaned the sculpture himself, using a cherry picker.[3]
In May 2021 the work was moved to its current location on Achilles Way.
In 2020, Syria installed a similar sculpture in Rawda Square, Damascus.[4]
A small copy of the sculpture stands in the centre of the village of At-Bashy in Kyrgyzstan as the village's name is literally translated as "horse's head" in one of the versions.