Phoenix Tree

A new sculpture by George Wagstaffe has been unveiled in Coventry.

The new sculpture was previewed by George at Coventry Society’s AGM in April 2023 and has now come to fruition.

The sculpture, Phoenix Tree, represents new life, new possibilities and new beginnings. It is located in a new peace garden at Coventry University, opposite the Cathedral. The University commissioned the sculpture for the site of the former Alan Berry Building.

George Wagstaffe is perhaps Coventry’s best-known sculptor with the Naiad having been recently relocated into the Upper Precinct and Phoenix in Hertford Street due to become a focus of the City Centre South development.

Mr Wagstaffe said it was based on intertwined trees he had seen from his caravan in Wales and it continued a theme of rebirth which started with the Phoenix statue he created for the city in 1962.

Coventry University had been carrying out a redevelopment which included the creation of an open green space, the statue’s home, between Coventry Cathedral and Cox Street.

The new garden was to be a place for students, staff and others in the community could come to reflect and “build on our city’s rich heritage of innovation and peace”, university vice-chancellor Prof John Latham said.

Mr Wagstaffe, who used to lecture at the university, said he was first approached with the commission to create a new work of art six years ago. But he said that the idea for it came from a “strange phenomenon” he observed more than a decade ago.

He explained he bought a static caravan in Wales with his late wife, when she was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

One day he said he noticed “a series of trees that were clustered together” and was told they had grown from the remains of another tree which had fallen down and been covered with earth by a farmer.

He felt it fitted his recurring theme of rebirth which tied in with the 1962 Phoenix sculpture on Hertford Street.

That artwork was produced to symbolise the city rising from the devastation of World War Two.

Mr Wagstaffe, who is a survivor of the Coventry Blitz, said he felt the theme suited the university too which he said was “bringing new growth and new hope and youth to the city”.

The statue is 20ft (6m) tall on its plinth, stands facing the city’s cathedral and was officially unveiled by the Lord Mayor on 17th January 2024.