ABOUT US
The way you tell your story can make all the difference. Harvey Horswell makes your stories unmissable.
Harvey Horswell is an Artist Agency and Artist Service Provider. We help connect art to corporations, clients and spaces by making approachable digital and physical experiences and bringing your work and your stories to the start of everything we do. From re-connecting clients with their artworks, to connecting artists with new audiences, through to connecting communities with their creativity and place.
Flo Horswell
Our Founder
Flo was born into a family of artist supporters - her mother and brother both having published books on artists and her sister and father operating a foundry and all of them worked in galleries. Today, the Sladmore Gallery is still in family hands as it approaches its 60th anniversary and the family beyond this has painters, designers and emerging top art advisors.
Beginning her career gallery-side 25 years ago stuffing envelopes, moving up to Registrar, Gallery Manager, Gallery Director, 19th Century Specialist and finally Director and Specialist in the Modern and Impressionist Department, she understands all levels of a commercial art business. She has curated exhibitions, overseen complex sculpture installations around the world, collaborated with over ten international major museum exhibitions, organised over 200 loans from private collections, set up two galleries and worked with other stakeholders on many public installations and engagement projects. She now vets seven art fairs and is chair of sculpture standard committees, completes sculpture valuations, arranges museum loans, helps with public installations across London and is writing her own catalogue on Herbert Haseltine an American Sculptor. She is an active member of the PSSA, RA, ICRA and sits on the Jermyn Street Retail Association board.
Our director firmly believes that the only way forward, after having worked on successful collaborations with brands and spaces outside of the norm, is connection.
Our People
We are a small team but with a wide connected reach. We only work with suppliers we know can not only produce the best results but react quickly and successfully when things do not go to plan.
We have partners across all disciplines who can work with different artworks, humans and budgets, all of whom we have already worked with on projects where their character and skills have been tested. Nothing beats being a good judge of character - except working with people over time.
MARY HARVEY
The Original Founder
Mary grew up in St. James’s Palace with her sister Elizabeth (who became an accomplished painter who still exhibits her work today) as her father worked within the royal household. Before joining the civil service Frank Evans had heard the distress call of the Titantic whilst being a junior on a merchant ship and the Titanic was to fascinate Mary for the rest of her life. She walked from the Palace to Greycoats school and only once claimed to be a 'Princess' which required a stern letter to her parents. Her father refused to allow her to contiue her education, to the consternation of her headmistress and instead paid only for secretarial college. Taking these skills with her Mary worked in the Bird House at London Zoo for Desmond Morris, the author of the 'Naked Ape' and even appeared on national television on 'Zoo Hour' teaching children about the animals and birds. It was here she met Harry Horswell with whom she was to spend the rest of her life. Despite leaving the zoo and moving into the sculpture world, her love of birds was never forgotten and she was to work with the Avicultural Society as it’s secretary for many years and produced the magazine with far reaching articles on conservation and breeding patterns, connecting with experts all around the world.
HARRY HORSWELL
Harry was most often described as a 'character' who had many great passions and endless ideas and projects. He loved most of all being surrounded by people, his birds and his land but kept his love of metal from when he was part of of H J Horswell and sons, constructural engineers of Edgeware Road, London but turned it into casting sculpture (and the odd animal fence). H J Horswell and Sons, worked on the Savoy installing girders and in 1969 won a top award for design for the GKN Water Tower, built with Sir Alfred McAlpine & sons Ltd. With his first wife Harry had founded The Sladmore Gallery in London and it was here that his and Mary’s relationship was solidified. During Mary's time at the Sladmore Gallery, she worked with collectors, curated exhibitions and completed research. She also helped maintain the galleries animal and avian occupants. She helped host not only riotous press events where 'black velvets' were served but also the London Avicultural Society Events with the traditional cheese and pineapple on sticks.
The Books
Mary worked with many artists, museums and experts in the following years and consolidated friendships in libraries and archives around the world. In particular she worked closely with Terence Cuneo on his monograph, with the foreword by His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh. In 1979 she wrote 'The Bronzes of Rembrandt Bugatti' the first illustrated Catalogue and Biography which is still referenced by auction houses and scholars today. She had trained as a French translator in her youth and this was invaluable as she navigated archives, libraries and museums around the world. A woman ahead of her time, she worked from home with a toddler underfoot, using cork boards to keep track of which museum had which cast.
After leaving London Mary and Harry Horswell lived together near Ascot on what was at one point one of the largest rare bird collections in Europe. Harry was to win 'colours' for his careful breeding programs and Mary was to support him and the collective artists who came to live and work at the stud. A sculpture foundry was set up and began casting works of artists who were not all sculptors to begin with but were encouraged to move from two dimensional work. Amongst the other projects there were also polo ponies, a restaurant with bar where the riotous lunches were held and a large collection of guinea pigs. There were constant visits to and from zoo directors passing eggs to help breeding programs around the world and they made additions to their 19th and 20th century sculpture collection throughout this time. Mary’s love of the wild flowers of England was ignited and she worked alongside experts and artists helping to capture them in illustrations.
The Farm
Mary and Harry settled last into a house with large gardens which were turned into smaller aviaries for the birds which remained (many of the birds were auctioned or donated to Bristol Zoo). The foundry was rebuilt and casting continued, with Victoria Horswell (Gig) continuing to breed and train polo ponies and Flo carrying on growing and reading. They were sadly to all pass away within three years of each other but their legacy continues both in sculpture, birds, polo and in their children and grandchildren.
Mary had planned to open her own Art advisory with Don Emmet, the last of the 'Birdmen' before she passed away and it felt right to include her and her teachings in our company name nearly three decades later.
Harvey Horswell embraces the past and binds it with the future. By connecting both, our stories grow.
