Simon Gurr, who collaborated with Eugene Byrne on the special (and well received) Darwin graphic biography for the great scientist’s 200th anniversary earlier this year, has been chosen for a high profile public artwork celebrating famous Bristolians: “Bristol Festival of Ideas and Bristol Cultural Development Partnership recently announced that Simon Gurr, Bristol artist and illustrator, has been chosen to create a new permanent artwork on the theme of Some Who Have Made Bristol Famous, following a citywide call for ideas and submission of proposals. The commission, worth £10,000, is funded by donations from two Bristol patrons.”
Ernest Board’s Some Who Have Made Bristol Famous (above) is the inspiration, which shows 39 famous Bristolians such as the navigator John Cabot and the ‘Master’ of cricket, WG Grace. Some 500 suggestions were sent in for new faces to be included in the new work Simon will create. Among the famous figures who will feature in Simon’s version are politician Tony Benn, Nobel winning scientist Paul Dirac (whose name was used for one of the great inventions of science fiction literature later on, the Dirac Transmitter), Isambard Kingdom Brunel and, I’m especially delighted to see, Wallace and Gromit from Bristol’s own Aardman Studios. It rather tickles me that Wallace and Gromit will be included! There are more details and a full list of the people who will be included on the official site. Well done, Simon – its quite a feather in his cap and who knows, when people come to look at his finished painting perhaps some of them will learn that he also draws comics and think, hey, hold on, maybe we should be looking at those too…
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