My father, Peter Hand, who has died aged 95, was an artist and teacher whose work ranged from large-scale public artworks – which he called “play sculptures” – to a long, personal series of meticulously detailed dioramas.
For 20 years from the mid-1960s, when he was a lecturer at Bournemouth College of Art, Peter was commissioned to produce a large number of sculptural works for shopping centres and other public spaces. Huge animals made in wood, steel or fibreglass, these were beautiful works of art for children – made to be touched, climbed on, dived into and slid through.
