Experience The Walk of Life Exhibition, by Anton Smit, on display at Mannings Heath Golf & Wine Estate. 

There is a display of his secondary miniatures at Mannings Heath Golf and Wine Estate. Visitors can observe these stunning miniatures on display throughout the property. 

At Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens, you can see the Walk of Life exhibition by Anton Smit 

Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens, West Sussex, which is home to Anton Smit Sculpture Park and Gallery. Anton Smit's monumental sculptures "The Walk of Life" form the centrepiece of an exhibition titled "The Walk of Life". 

Leonardslee House's gardens and Gallery offer a glimpse into the sculptor's life works. 

All works are available for purchase. For further information, please contact art@leonardsleegardens.co.uk 

The main Sculpture Park & Gallery is included in the general garden entry fee. 

Leonardslee Exhibition Overview 

‘The Walk of Life tells a story that takes the visitor on a journey of self-discovery.’   

The exhibition includes nearly fifty years of Anton Smit's contemporary sculpture and life work. This exhibition of over eighty sculptures will be displayed for the first time in the UK. It will present important pieces from Smit's practice representing different eras of his career, all of which will be for sale.  

The Life And Work Of Anton Smit 

The renowned South African sculptor Anton Smit (born August 2, 1954, in Boksburg) was born in 1954.  

His works, which evoke themes of suffering, reconciliation, glory, and sublimation, are found in countrywide and international collections of public and private collections alike.  

The sounds of spoken verse and the rasping of sculptures in progress are customary sounds emanating from his studio. Anton Smit's work is larger than life, an apt term that derives from the word "making" for this sculptor.  

“The artist is the mouthpiece, medium, and meaning all in one, and the artist's task is to continuously create himself, finding meanings and meanings in given shapes, figures, and faces.  

Nature imitates and assimilates man, resulting in poetry in word and form.”

This is why so many of his pieces, even the most abstract, are able to convey strong emotional messages and why his work has a raw, earthy power that feels innately African. He produces a wide variety of sculptures, including towering figures, naked women, impressive heads, masks, hands, angels, floating and stretching figures, warriors, as well as abstracts using mostly steel, metal, fibreglass, and bronze.  

The illusion of movement or gesture in Anton's work is achieved through bodies curled up or extended limbs reaching out, inspirational "action figures" evoking considerable emotion, calling the viewer to action. Besides working with metals and stones, he also creates a unique iron and polymer cast mixture, which combines metal with other mediums.  

Anton spends the first three months of each year at his Cape studio in Strand, and for the rest of the year at his Bronkhorstspruit Dam studio, where he oversees a team of 16 employees. “We are like family.”  

In his creative prime, Anton Smit is a force to be reckoned with.  

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