Wareham House, Carroun Road SW8

Peter Peri's footballers look almost comically dated now, with their long shorts, long socks and heavy leather boots. They were created in 1952 to brighten up a post-war council block.

The sparring players were built up in multi-coloured concrete troweled on to wire mesh secured to the wall.

The footballers face not onto the public space of Carroun Road but the internal courtyard, whether so it would be better appreciated by the residents or simply because that was where the only suitable space was available is not known. Unfortunately it means this work of art looks out over the bins.

Note the sensitively-located security light. I like to think it was put there by the same maintenance man who put up this nearby notice, with typical Sarf London subversive humour:

Peter Peri's life was largely defined by flight from oppression. He was born a Jew in Hungary in 1899, but it was not his religion but his left-wing politics that forced him to flee the country, first to Vienna and Paris, then, in 1922, to Wiemar Berlin. Htler's rise to power in 1933 sent signals he could not ignore and he and his wife slipped off to Britain, arriving with the clothes they stood up in and little else.
Having been forced to move round Europe because of his avowal of Communism, when the brutality of Stalin's rule began to be revealed he abandoned Marx and became a Quaker, attracted by their pacifism and commitment to bettering the lot of working people.

Horton House, Meadow Road SW8

Peter Peri, the sculptor who executed this charming group of a mother playing ring o'roses with her children about 1952, made a long journey as an artist from a stonemason's apprentice in Hungary, becoming an Expressionist before the First World War, flirting with Constructivism between the Wars and ending up as a figurative sculptor. It reflected his political journey through left-wing activism to Communism and back - as the true enormity of Stalin's regime became clear, turned his back on ideology and became a Quaker, devoting his energies to bringing accessible art to the lives of ordinary people.

Which is what he does at Horton House. The medium is concrete applied wet to metal mesh secured to the wall, a system that appealed to him (he was perpetually skint) and to Lambeth Borough Council, who had no money either. 

The use of colours brings the composition vividly to life.

Note the sensitively-located security light, the sort of thing that happens when a work is not listed.

Darley House, Laud Street SE11

Following the Leader is a poignant piece intended by the artist, Peter Peri, as a memorial to the children killed in the Blitz.

The area was extensively bombed, and most of the houses that survived were taken down when peace broke out by a council determined to create a new Jerusalem. Darley House was built in the late 1940s and this piece dates from between 1949 and 1952.

Peri offered his services to Lambeth Council on spec, partly because he wanted to bring art to the people but also because he was broke (the War was not a time when commissions were common). Before the war, to save money, Peri had developed a technique for sculpting in wet concrete directly to a wall. He would secure an armature of wire mesh to the wall and trowel coloured concrete on. The technique attracted interest from industry and an exhibition of his work in 1938 had been sponsored by the Cement and Concrete Association.

The composition shows children holding hands in a spiral towards the sky. The concrete is ochre coloured. Originally, the bricks or the pointing may have been coloured but any background treatment has now been lost.

The location of the work is very strange. Instead of adorning the front, south-facing side overlooking Vauxhall Gardens, it is on the gloomy stair well round the back, looking out over the car park, electricicy substation and the bins.

Whether this is due to Peri's desire to create art for the residents rather than art-lovers, or simply because the architects had already finalised the design and the stair well was the only flat wall available, is impossible to say.