Controversial Prince Philip statue that looks nothing like late royal to be removed in Cambridge
It’s a royal eyesore.
A 13-foot-tall sculpture of the late Prince Philip that has been derided as “detritus masquerading as public art” will be torn down after a decade of towering over pedestrians in Cambridge, England.
“The Don” statue, which depicts a faceless figure wearing a mortarboard and university robes, was erected on a city street in 2014 — much to the chagrin of locals who have said it is “kitsch-like” and “detritus masquerading as public art,” according to Katie Thornburrow, the executive councilor for planning.
“Nobody, apart from the wealthy property developer who commissioned it, seems to have a good word to say about it,” she claimed on her website.
Even the city’s public arts manager lambasted the $189,477.75 piece as “possibly the poorest quality work that has ever been submitted” to the council in her rejection of The Unex Group’s application to build it, according to The Times of London.
She claimed at the time that the statue would have a “negative impact on the wider public realm.”
The Unex Group now has until the fall to remove the sculpture, the Cambridge city council ruled recently, claiming that “The Don” has had a “harmful material impact” on the landscape and was erected without city approval.
Thornburrow welcomed the news on her website, saying she “will be glad to see it gone” but is still “angry that developers could just dump it in place and then force the council to spend officers’ time and money to take it away.
“We deserve better,” she said.
But Bill Gredley, the 91-year-old chairman of The Unex Group, said he thought he didn’t need permission to build the sculpture on land the business owns.
He told the UK Times he reached out to Pablo Atchugarry, a renowned Uruguayan sculptor whose work has been sold around the world, to commission the work honoring the Duke of Edinburgh’s 35 years as chancellor of Cambridge University in 2014.
“We could not find a piece of marble big enough, so he designed a maquette,” or a rough draft of an unfinished sculpture, Gredley said.
“We then decided to cast it in bronze, which we did.”
Gredley said he paid Bronze Age London to produce the sculpture, which he then placed on land his company owned.
Underneath a plaque was also put up identifying the sculpture’s subject as “HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Chancellor, University of Cambridge 1977-2011.”
But shortly after the sculpture was unveiled for the world to see, Atchugarry denied responsibility.
“I am not the author of this sculpture, and it is an abuse that they had used my name,” he said at the time, according to The Guardian.
“I wish somebody would apologize to me for this misunderstanding.”
Gredley, though, insists the sculpture is a legitimate Atchugarry work.
“He did it. He got paid for it,” Gredley told the UK Times.
“There were people that didn’t like it and I understand this, and there are people that love it, and I understand that as well,” he said. “The piece is controversial.”
The chairman now says he will abide by the city council’s order to remove the statue.
“We’re gonna take it away and put it somewhere else where it will be appreciated,” he insisted.
Philip died in 2021 at age 99. He was married to Queen Elizabeth II, who died a year later, for 74 years.
