14 items
The original cows, made in 1978 by Liz Leyh with local schoolchildren, on loan to Midsummer Place and penned around its oak. The oak drowned after building work took away its drainage and was declared dead in 2015; the next year the cows went to Milton Keynes Museum in Wolverton, where they were made.
André Wallace's bronze outside the Central Library, where it has been since the mid-1980s. The library was listed at Grade II in 2015, and the listing counts its artworks among the reasons.
One of the two masked figures in Philip Jackson's Dangerous Liaisons, a 1995 bronze from his series on the Venetian carnival, in the Theatre District. The other wears a tricorne.
Diane Maclean's walk-through sculpture in front of Xscape, put up when the building opened in 2000—her own site calls it Wings Xscape. The wavy seat is part of the work, and the whole thing doubles as a windbreak.
Dhruva Mistry's stainless steel building that can't be entered, in the gallery's grounds. It's still there, though the gallery beside it was extended and given a new entrance in 2019.
Elisabeth Frink's bronze at Lloyds Court, outside the Lloyds Bank that helped pay for it. When the building was approved for redevelopment in 2016, the plans made a point of saying the horse would stay.
Wendy Taylor's stainless steel Möbius strip on its pool outside Norfolk House, 1980. In 2015 a planning application proposed removing the pool; it was withdrawn, and the next year Historic England listed the sculpture and pool together at Grade II.
The third Schottlander in what was then City Gardens. The MS in the series name is his initials and, he was pleased to note, mild steel; the plaque and Art UK shorten it to 2M.
Schottlander again, painted steel, 1966–68. Art UK and the council's own trail call it No 5; Wikipedia and RIBA's photo archive call it 3B Series No 6.
Bernard Schottlander's painted steel, bought by the development corporation in 1972 and moved to City Gardens in 1983. The gardens were renamed in 2012 after Fred Roche, the corporation's general manager.
Eilis O'Connell's bronzes in Exchange Square, made for the city's 25th birthday in 1992 and based on Ogham stones, with fibre optic elements.
Wendy Taylor's 1982 bronze outside Saxon Court on Avebury Boulevard, then the council's offices. Saxon Court has since been sold, with permission to redevelop it as MK Gateway; the rings were still there in 2024.
Bill Woodrow's 1996 bronze book-bench. The British Library has the better-known cast; this one sits inside Midsummer Place, parked outside Waterstones then and now.
Michael Sandle's 1988 bronze, full title A Mighty Blow for Freedom: Fuck the Media, swaps the Rank gongman for a helmeted figure taking a hammer to a television. It's one of three casts—the others are in Glasgow and Lincoln—and this one still stands outside the market on Midsummer Boulevard.