Space found for Gormley's stone Planets after 15 years

As a crane heaved the first of eight massive stones into a grey sky above the forecourt of the British Library at 11am yesterday, Antony Gormley could have been forgiven for not believing his eyes.

The sculptor, best known as the creator of the giant Angel of the North beside the A1, was supervising the installation of a work first commissioned from him some 15 years ago.

Planets, an octet of granite boulders formed by a Swedish glacier and carved with a human figure clinging to them, was originally to be funded with £1m set aside by the previous Tory government.

But the budget for public art in the building was withdrawn after the cost of the new library at St Pancras, central London, spiralled – forcing Gormley, an unknown in 1987, to leave his plans on the drawing board.

Donations from private sponsors finally made the project possible last year. It will be formally unveiled on 18 July, set on eight plinths in the Poet's Circle, a small amphitheatre in the library forecourt.

Each of the stones, smoothed over the centuries by the passage of the Scandinavian ice, was chosen by the artist last November in Malmo before being carved in February and March this year.

Gormley, who won the Turner Prize in 1994 and is now considered one of the world's foremost sculptors, said the long genesis was a case of life imitating art. "It seems that everything with this, from the rocks to the project itself, has been destined to move at the pace of a glacier," he said.

Each of the stones, weighing between 1,650lb (750kg) and one ton, features one of eight figures, modelled by Gormley's friends and family, including his daughter, Paloma, 14, plus the artist himself.

Carefully supervising the installation, Gormley said his work deliberately turned the tradition of sculptors carving forms out of stone by having each of his figures moulded with the subject matter.

"They are hanging on for dear life," he said. "If you look at the world view at the time of the Renaissance, it was about the power of man to transform nature.

"What I wanted to show here was the dependency of bodies, our bodies, on the physical world and Mother Earth by carving these forms on to the rock itself."

The sculptures will sit beside the building's other main art work, a giant bronze cast of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi.