Two photos of todays statue of William Etty, artist, which can be found in Exhibition Square, York, outside the Art Gallery. The shot on the left was taken in July 2018 during the York Bloom! festival, when various squares and public spaces were decorated with real or artificial flowers. I rather liked the addition of colour to the artists palette. It also shows the dirtyness of the stone. Since then it, along with the statue of George Leeman (see yesterdays post) have been cleaned. The second shot shows the statue a few days ago, in it's newly cleaned condition.
The statue stands outside the Art Gallery, facing Bootham Bar (one of the historical gates into the city), which he helped to protect from misguided town planners in the early 19th century. He was born in York in 1787, the son of a baker in Feasegate. Although he spent most of his working life in London he returned to York in later life and bought a house and studio overlooking the River Ouse close to where he was born. Etty was very active in campaigning to preserve York’s historic buildings. He is buried in St Olave’s churchyard, near the Museum Gardens.
As far as I know, I've now shared all the statues of well known people in public spaces in the central area of York. Three seems a rather small number for a city with the long history and heritage that York has. The only other statue in a public space that I can think of is in West Bank park in Acomb, where there is one of Queen Victoria. Hopefully when public transport restricitons are relaxed I will be able to go and get a photo of that.
Thank you for the interesting story. Every day we protest against new building projects that are destroying our architectural heritage but our government of these last years has based its policies on building more and more apartment blocks without respect for our heritage and importing people from everywhere and we all feel overcrowded. So a statue of a man like Etty is very meaningful to someone like me.
He doesn’t have a statue but don’t forget the “Physicians’ physician” Jon Snow. His water pump tribute is on North Street. Cholera and anaesthethics. Queen Victoria was happy to meet him!
Thank you all for your lovely comments and favs, they are very much appreciated.
In contrast to the small number of statues in public places in York, there are large numbers of blue plaques commemorating the great and the good, though they are rather less photogenic than statues.
@jesika2 You are quite right Jesika, the Jon Snow monument is a nice recent addition to North Street Gardens - I shall have to add it to my list of things to photograph for our project.
@sangwann I agree, so many modern buildings are so bland, and so many attractive old buildings have been destroyed. We have a concrete monstrosity of a building called Stonebow House in the centre of York. All architects designing buildings for the city should be taken to see it and it should be made clear that it is NOT what is required!
Another thought. Not a real person but Richard Chicken was supposed to be the inspiration for Mr Micawber. He lived on Micklegate and I believe the building has been restored j
Though agree with you, the colourful one is very pretty
Thank you all for your lovely comments and favs, they are very much appreciated.
In contrast to the small number of statues in public places in York, there are large numbers of blue plaques commemorating the great and the good, though they are rather less photogenic than statues.
Ian
Ian
Ian
He is stuck in a rather bare square, so I'm not surprised the flowers cheered him up!
Ian
I didn't know that Jesika - but then it's really a lifetime project to discover all the features of interest in York.
Ian