The unveiling of a new piece if public art by local artist Robin Riley for Bold Street is reported in The Daily Post on 19 September 1960: “The draperies fell and there was the sort of silence in which everyone was wondering what to say … a child let out a howl … and a man with a beard said ‘Dreary old Liverpool strikes again’.
There is an emergency meeting of the Bold Street Association and “the statue itself is given police protection” before being removed after only three days. Interestingly, at the time Councillor Maguire of Crosby comments that he “would have liked it put on the Blundellsands sea front” … currently home of course to Anthony Gormley’s 100 iron figures.
Reproduced from John Willet’s “Art in a city” with thanks to Bryan Biggs at Bluecoat who is currently writing a foreword to a reprint of this seminal early 60’s book to be published by Liverpool University Press.
I was there when it was taken down and removed, I was an apprentice engineer doing work in Blakes & Liverpool Savings Bank buildings heating system in Bold St, a few of us were asked to pose for a photo rolling it over, this was later published in the Daily Post, always wondered what became of it, I think it was made of fibre glass.