Work started last week in London’s Park Lane to install three large artworks by the eminent sculptor William Turnbull, marking the latest additions to Westminster Council’s City of Sculpture festival.

Pedestrians and motorists passing through the area will be treated to a free open air art show, as the pieces will be installed on the central islands near the famous hotels of Park Lane in time for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and throughout the 2012 Olympics.

The three pieces, 3x1 (1966), Large Horse (1990) and Large Blade Venus (1990), span almost thirty years of Turnbull’s work and are on loan to Westminster City Council from the artist as well as the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Chatsworth House, where they have been recently displayed.

Hailed as a ‘true pioneer of modernism’, Turnbull was one of the first artists to benefit from the spatial perspective of seeing the earth from above, having served as a pilot during the Second World War. This experience had a profound impact on his paintings and sculpted pieces: today he is widely regarded as one of Britain’s greatest living artists.

Westminster Council’s City of Sculpture festival was launched in 2010 to transform the city into an open air gallery in the build up to the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games and Diamond Jubilee. The project brings art to the city without commercial gain and at no cost to the taxpayer.

Some of the previous projects have included a statue of Genghis Khan in Marble Arch, the Jelly Baby Family by Mauro Perucchetti in Marble Arch, Paul MacCarthy’s Ship of Fools in St James’s Square, five stone heads by Emily Young in Berkeley Square and Emergence by David Breuer Weil in Hanover Square.

Cllr Robert Davis, Deputy Leader of Westminster Council said: “Westminster City Council’s City of Sculpture festival has been a fantastic success, bringing some of the most exciting and imaginative pieces of art into the capital for the public to see. We are enormously privileged to be able to display these important works of art by William Turnbull particularly as he celebrates his 90th year.”