The artist Gerry Judah has created a monumental motor racing themed sculpture for this years Goodwood Festival of Speed. Mercedes-Benz can trace its motorsport origins back through three centuries, to 1894, when Daimler engines powered the world’s first winners on the rough roads of France. It’s appropriate then, that this year’s sculpture at Goodwood Festival of Speed represents that enormous span through thirteen decades. Soaring 26 metres over Goodwood House, this 160-tonne steel sculpture is 90 metres long.
It was 80 years ago when the legend of the German racing “Silver Arrows” was born. Stripped of their lead-based white paint, the 1934 Mercedes-Benz W25 – like the example installed here – won at its first outing at the notorious Nürburgring Nordschleife, with Manfred von Brauchitsch at the wheel – and since then, the company’s works cars have always been silver. The other Silver Arrow soaring overhead is the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team’s F1 W04. This car, chassis number 04, was raced in 15 Grands Prix in 2013 by Lewis Hamilton, most notably to five Pole positions; to victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix; and to third place podiums in Malaysia, China and Belgium.
Judah recently unveiled his much anticipated twin sculptures in the nave of St Paul’s Cathedral. The work has been installed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. Born in 1951 in Calcutta, India, Gerry Judah moved to London with his family at the age of ten years old. A graduate of Goldsmiths College and Slade School of Fine Art, Judah has worked on settings for some of the UK’s leading theatres, museums and public spaces, including the Royal Opera House, Royal Shakespeare Company, British Museum, English National Opera and Royal Ballet. Gerry Judah’s work has been exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery, Camden Arts Centre and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and has entered many international public and private collections including the Saatchi Collection London, and the Imperial War Museum.