Cinema Century

Cinema Century

Cinema Centenary sculpture

Extract from the Public Monuments & Sculpture Association:

A sculpture comprising various brightly coloured flat cut-out figures and nautical and cinematic motifs. Arranged in a ring around a curl of film and a seagull the figures represent a pirate; a mermaid; a lifeboatman; Captain Cook and Gertrude Bell.

One of two works designed by Clinch for Redcar’s celebration of 100 years of British Cinema.(REAA21, qv) When the sculptor fell seriously ill the sculpture was completed by two artists and a blacksmith.(1) The various elements refer to Redcar’s history; links to the sea, the local Regent cinema and two local heroes, Captain Cook (MIAA56, qv) and Gertrude Bell.(2) Bell, the renowned ‘Desert Queen’, spent her early childhood in Redcar. Born in Washington, County Durham in 1868, she travelled the world after graduating from Oxford. Exploring uncharted deserts years before T.E Lawrence, her knowledge of the Bedouin tribes is said to have been crucial to allied intelligence forces in World War One. Also known as a capable archaeologist, linguist, writer, mountaineer and photographer she died in Iraq, the state she helped establish, in 1923. She was buried in Baghdad with full military honours.(3)

See more here.

Funding