Sydney’s favourite fountain is the Archibald in Hyde Park North. The name Archibald is associated not only with this distinctive Art Deco showpiece but with the popular annual Archibald Prize for portrait painting conducted through the Art Gallery of NSW. Both are the legacy of a private citizen, J F Archibald, both are somewhat bizarre and both are quintessentially ‘Sydney’.

The Archibald fountain was erected in Hyde Park North in 1932, a gift to the City of Sydney bequeathed in the will of J F Archibald. It is intended to commemorate the association between Australia and France in world War one, and is the work of French sculptor Francois Sicard. It depicts a bronze Apollo surrounded by other mythical figures. Horses’ heads, dolphins and tortoises exuberantly spray jets of water. (Tony Smith / City of Sydney)

As the fountain is flamboyant, so was the man. In the 1880s AF Archibald founded the Bulletin newspaper, famous for encouraging an Australian idiom in Australian writing. But in his own life Archibald was fascinated by all things Parisian. He changed his name from John Feltham to Jules Francois and wore a little French style beard when no one else was wearing them. In donating the Archibald Fountain to the City he imagined its civic design and ornamentation developing to rival the city of his dreaming. (Norman Lindsay, Bohemians of the Bulletin, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1965)

The fountain stands above the St James station.

Taken from:The City of Sydney website.