Gardening – and the shape of things to come

In the wake of the announcement of Arts Council cuts, the new Government has suggested that the arts should perhaps look to moneyed individuals to support them.

Step forward Peter Roberts.

The hotel and property entrepreneur, who sold the Golden Tulip UK hotel group to Whitbread for 45m in 2007, is the brains behind the Pure Gym brand, which has seen branches opening across the country, including in Leeds.

When not running his business empire, Roberts likes to enjoy the finer things in life – and that, for him, means the arts.

"It is something that's completely self-taught," he says.

"I've always had a great interest in the arts – I support the Northern Arts annual show at Ripon Cathedral."

Roberts's big passion in the arts, however, is for sculpture.

"I don't know what it is about sculpture," he says. "It's something to do with the three-dimensional form that I find very interesting. I love to see the range of opportunity the medium provides in terms of the shapes and sizes that it can create."

Fortunately for many, Roberts is in a position to indulge his passion and has a personal collection of 25 large-scale sculptures which are housed in the Himalayan gardens of his home at Grewelthorpe.

The gardens are open annually to the public for seven weeks in early summer, and visitors have always been able to admire Roberts's personal collection, but this year he has gone a step further and turned his garden into a fully-fledged sculpture park, with more than 150 works of art on display.

"The idea came simply because, in the south of England there are a lot of gardens open to the public that are filled with sculptures for people to enjoy," says Roberts.

"But here we don't really seem to have that many. There's Newby Hall and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, obviously, but apart from that I don't think there are many of those sorts of places around."

Is it perhaps because we have an internationally- renowned venue in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, along with Newby Hall's sculpture park, which will open to the public next week, that we don't need to have lots of little exhibition spaces, as they do in the South?

"Those places are wonderful, but in creating this sculpture park, I wanted to do something that was a little less grand, with a wide range of pieces," says Roberts.

Good to his word, his own collection is complemented by works created by second-year students on the art and design course at Leeds University.

Roberts sponsors the second year of the course, mindful that it is often those at the very start of their careers who need more help.

He, along with a committee, have chosen three of the students to receive bursaries.

He has also given them an opportunity to exhibit in the impressive surroundings of his private gardens to give their work the best showcase.

The garden is open daily until June 13, from 10am to 4pm. For more information, phone 01765 658009.

The Tenth Annual Newby Hall Sculpture Park exhibition runs from June 1-Sept 26. The exhibition features contemporary sculptures, with more than 60 art works around the grounds.