A life-size bronze of Hugo, the Folly Farm lion who died last year, now looks out over the enclosure where his mate and four daughters still live.
It was sculpted by Katie Morrissey, a fine art student at Coleg Sir Gâr’s art school in Carmarthen.
Folly Farm says Katie, who is from Rhondda Cynon Taf, had never worked with clay or bronze on that scale before.
Eight students, one lion, and the keeper who chose
The zoo near Kilgetty wanted a lasting tribute to Hugo and asked the college’s art school what it could do.
Eight students spent weeks making clay models of him.
Zookeeper Dan Sutton, who worked with Hugo for many years, picked Katie’s to be finished.
‘Serendipitously within our schedule’
Fine art tutor and technician Lee Odishow, known as Dish, said the commission came at the right moment. “This live project fell serendipitously within our schedule and coincided with the 2nd year Studio Skills brief,” he said.
He said the job covered most of what that module teaches, from “approaching a commission, client relations, mapping, working to scale” to “armature building, clay application and modelling, and working to a set brief”.
The project was planned with Lisa Phillips, programme director of fine art practice at the college.
‘Our gentle giant Hugo’
The bust sits in the zoo’s African lion exhibit, part of its Pride of Pembrokeshire area. The plaque beneath it reads: “In memory of our gentle giant Hugo, 2008 to 2025.”
Katie’s fellow students, tutors, family and friends were there for the unveiling. Managing director Chris Ebsworth handed her a £250 cheque for the winning sculpture.
She then went behind the scenes with Dan to meet Hugo’s mate, Luna, and their four daughters, Sola, Ebele, Alika and Zahra.
Everyone finished with Hugo cupcakes from Sandie Jones, who bakes as The Cake Fairy Pembs.
The plaque also thanks the Carmarthen School of Art, the name the college uses for its art school.
It is a quieter moment for a zoo whose recent news has been a new eastern black rhino calf. In the summer it launched a beer named after a penguin’s monobrow.
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