Friday Photo: The Wrestlers

Today’s Friday photo was inspired by Historic England’s audio-tour of post war public art in Birmingham city centre, available (here). Having explored these in the city centre, I went in search of more examples and found myself on the university of Birmingham campus. They have a large collection of art throughout the campus, but I was particularly taken with the abstract simplified form of ‘The Wrestlers’ by Edward Bainbridge-Copnall. Bainbridge-Copnall was a former president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors during 1961-66 and completed ‘The Wrestlers’ in 1950. The sculpture is situated outside the Mechanical and Civil Engineering department. It was purchased with donations made by the former students of a Professor Bannister, to show him their appreciation, on the event of his retirement from the school of thermodynamics at the University of Birmingham in 1974.