A BLITZ survivor’s sculpture of a phoenix tree, which pays tribute to the city’s history and future, has been unveiled in Coventry University’s new peace garden.
Blitz survivor George Wagstaffe was commissioned to create the bronze sculpture, which symbolises the evolution of Coventry.
It is modelled on new trees George saw growing on the site of a fallen tree.
The four-metre-high tree draws on his experiences of the Blitz, which left much of Coventry as rubble.
It aims to convey how Coventry built itself up from ruins and became the City of Peace and Reconciliation.
A poem etched onto the plinth of the sculpture was created by Coventry University graduate Michaela Gyetvai, who also attended the unveiling.
The new peace garden stretches from Coventry Cathedral to Cox Street and sits where the Alan Berry Building once was.
George Wagstaffe said: “Although I didn’t think so at the time, I think the Blitz has had a massive effect on my work, the idea that things do crumble, do fall away, do break up and out of that can come something greater, something good.
“This sculpture was conceived 15 years ago when I was drawing and painting in Wales.
“I was drawing a series of trees that were very strange and I found out that a tree some years before had fallen down and instead of being cut up it was covered with earth and out of it had come these new trees.
“How wonderful to have a university city growing up and growing something new, something vital for Coventry.”
