Farewell to Cuneo, hello to Betjeman
23rd October 2007
Visitors arriving at London St Pancras International when it opens on 14th November will find that they are not the first to arrive.
Underneath the station clock stands a couple locked in a timeless embrace. The couple are in fact a 30ft high bronze sculpture by artist Paul Day. The sculpture titled the Meeting Place was designed to reflect the romance of the classic age of train travel and is modelled on the English artist and his half-French wife to show two cultures and two people intertwined.
This affectionate couple will be joined by a somewhat smaller statue of Sir John Betjeman who will be standing in the central concourse looking up in awe at the architecture of the great station he championed in 1967, saving it from development plans. The bronze figure by Martin Jennings stands at a height of 2.1m on Cumbrian slate inscribed with Betjeman's poetry.
These marvellous works of art follow in the footsteps of another brilliant artist Terence Cuneo whose Oil Painting “Waterloo Station” immortalises the bustling concourse of Waterloo station in 1967 for all time. In return Cuneo himself is immortalized forever in bronze, by the artist Philip Jackson, on the balcony overlooking the current Eurostar terminal at London Waterloo.
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