Museum of Liverpool on the road
2 to 30 October 2006 (please note that this object is no longer on display)
While the new Museum of Liverpool is being built, we are touring some of its fantastic collections ‘on the road’. You can now see some extraordinary and iconic items on display at unexpected venues across the city. See further details on the Museum of Liverpool on the road homepage.
Andrew Collinge’s newest salon hosted a plaster cast bust of local poet Brian Patten complete with his mop of his curly hair. Andrew Collinge said:
"I'm proud to be a patron of National Museums Liverpool and am delighted to offer our flagship Castle Street salon as a venue for the On the Road project. Art has such an influence on our lives and hopefully in this small way we will exhibit the cast bust of local poet Brian Patten's unique work to a wider audience."
Further details about the Castle Street salon are available on the Andrew Collinge website.
Accession number MMM.2003.273
Poet and performer Brian Patten first made his name in the 1960s as one of the Liverpool Poets, along with Adrian Henri and Roger McGough. Their aim was to make poetry accessible and to bring it to new audiences.
Nationally recognised sculptor Jilly Sutton made this half carved and half cast sculpture from Brian’s face, a process he did not enjoy! The distinctive hair is made from strips of black card with lines from Burning Genius, one of Brian’s poems, printed on them. Jilly chose this poem “as it had long lines – so the writing went the length of the curl”.
This unusual sculpture represents the role Brian played in Liverpool’s cultural explosion of the 1960s, and the impact this continues to have today.