Hands up if you love dinosaurs!

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, but not the Mineral Rights - Jake and Dinos Chapman
Royal Academy Annenberg Courtyard, Summer 2007.

This was the peak of my plaque photography mission and I’d spent a wonderful summer’s day pootling about SW1 getting under the skin of the likes of Churchill, De Gaulle & Gainsborough, being a little narked that out of 27 plaques in the area only 2 were commemorating women, and if I remember correctly suffering from mild sunstroke as I forgot to take any water, or any money out with me.
Coming across this amazingly joyful installation in the RA courtyard was the icing on the cake for me and I sat in the shade for at least an hour watching children and adults alike playing in the fountains.
According to the RA website:

Three huge metal dinosaurs by Jake and Dinos Chapman have been installed in the Royal Academy’s Annenberg Courtyard for this year’s Summer Exhibition. This is the first time that the Chapmans, key members of the so-called YBA (Young British Artists) generation, have created a large-scale outdoor sculpture.

Entitled The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, but not the Mineral Rights, it continues the theme of their earlier work, Hell Sixty Five Million Years BC (2004-5), in which models of prehistoric creatures also featured.

Measuring more than eight metres in length and towering up to seven metres high, the three corten steel dinosaurs are the latest installation in the RA’s programme of Sculpture in the Courtyard, and follow on from Anselm Kiefer’s Jericho, Rodin’sGates of Hell and Damien Hirst’sVirgin Mother. 

 The work’s title is a J Paul Getty quote (1892 - 1976).
I chose to upload these this evening instead of writing my planned post on the London Library as I came across the images while looking for an exterior pic of the LL building and they reminded me of so many happy memories banked while exploring London looking for the things that others miss, and that’s exactly what I wanted this blog to be about.