LONDON.- The Zahra Modern Art Foundries, a major new UK art foundry, has been launched under the ownership of the artist Nasser Azam. Based in a purpose-built facility in Braintree , Essex , and benefiting from highly skilled local craftsmen, the Zahra Modern Art Foundries will build on the tradition and expertise of the Morris Singer Foundry (closed May 2010). The Morris Singer Foundry produced some of London ’s most famous monumental sculptures, including the bronze lions in Trafalgar Square , and the Boudicca outside the Houses of Parliament. ‘The Morris Singer Art Foundry has made work by all the major British sculptors over the past 170 years, and is an important part of the cultural heritage of this country’, said Nasser Azam. ‘It is my wish both to preserve the skills and knowledge that have been built up since the nineteenth century, and also to take the Foundry into a new stage in its history’. Traditional techniques of monumental bronze casting