A group of 35 multi-coloured lions, which created a walking trail across the summer months, has fetched £220,000 at auction.
The hand-painted statues from the Lions at Large art trail were auctioned at Gloucester Cathedral to help raise cash for a new cancer treatment centre at Cheltenham General Hospital, through the Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Charity.
A lion sculpture entitled Leon Leading – searching for the Ark, by artist and sculptor PJ Crook, sold for the individual highest price when it was bought for a winning bid of £30,000.
Organisers reported that all of the lions were sold for a minimum of £2,500, and the project overall had already raised a total of £370,000 for the new treatment centre.
The 32 big lions and three cubs were scattered over 30 spots in Cheltenham and Gloucester from July to September, and thousands of visitors saw them during the summer holidays.
The Big Space Appeal for the new cancer treatment centre has collected £9.4m of its target of £17.5m.
“It will be a place that genuinely embraces patients at each stage as they make their way through it with areas to unwind, natural light, a garden space, and assistance about them so they have wraparound support at each stage,” Richard Smith, associate director of Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Charity, said of the centre.
Sam Morris, who is from Twyning, close to Tewkesbury, was among 30 UK artists commissioned for the trail and designed the Kintsugi lion, inspired by the Japanese technique of repairing cracked or broken objects with powdered gold.
Ms Morris was diagnosed with breast cancer on the day she was commissioned and stated that designing the sculpture had been like “therapy”.
Knowing how much the lion meant to Ms Morris, her Twyning friends fundraised for it and, with help from other bidders’ donations, it will be coming back to the village after being purchased for £15,500.
Referring to her neighbours’ initiative, Ms Morris has stated: “I’m shocked about that because I know that they know how much this means to me.
“They’re actually my gold seams.”
