Shaun in the City auction raises over £1m for sick children in hospital
Howard Lake | 9 October 2015 | News
An auction of 120 individually-designed sculptures of Aardman’s Shaun the Sheep last night raised £1,087,900 in Bristol. The money will be split between two charities helping children in hospital.
The auction was hosted by TV presenter and Sotheby’s auctioneer Tim Wonnacott. Bids were also taken online, and the auction was streamed online.
Many of the sculptures were designed by celebrities, artists and international brands. These included Cath Kidston, Hello Kitty, Paddington Bear, supermodel David Gandy, fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, DreamWorks Animation, and of course Wallace & Gromit’s creator, Nick Park.
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The sculptures were exhibited in London and Bristol earlier this year as part of Shaun in the City, a public arts trail from Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Charity, the team behind the award-winning ‘Gromit Unleashed’ trail in 2013.
The trail involved 120 5ft sculptures of Shaun the Sheep, of which 50 were placed in iconic locations in London and 70 in Bristol. The trail culminated in a public exhibition and last night’s charity auction.
Shaun was recently voted the nation’s best loved BBC children’s character of all time in a survey by the Radio Times.
Highest bid was £28,000
The sculpture that raised the most was ‘Globetrotter’ by Sarah Matthews, which featured on the London trail. It sold for £28,000.
Other valuable sales included:
• ‘Sparkles the Unicorn’ by Emily Golden: sold for £25,000
• ‘Starstruck’ by film director, Richard Wiliams: £24,000
• ‘Shaun on the Cob’ by Katie Wallis: £20,000
• Nick Park’s ‘Baaack to the Drawing Board’: £21,000
The income was being split between The Grand Appeal in Bristol and Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Charity.
Nicola Masters, director, Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Charity, said:
“We are over the moon that our ‘Shaun in the City’ auction has raised such an incredible amount for The Grand Appeal and Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Charity. Our trails in London and Bristol this year attracted interest on a global scale, and we’d like to thank every single bidder for their support.
“Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Charity has funded almost 300 projects to date, from child-friendly ward improvements and play therapy to state-of-the-art equipment and counselling for families. The funds raised by our London sculptures will help us do even more to enhance the lives of young patients at hospitals all around the country.
“The Grand Appeal will use the money raised by the 70 Bristol sculptures will be used to continue the funding of pioneering lifesaving equipment and family accommodation for sick children and their families at Bristol Children’s Hospital and neonatal intensive care unit.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.