A Mural Obligation

A trip to Hull City Centre during the 1970's from the family home in Beverley, some 11 miles north, invoked two very different emotions. The happiest was when the purpose was to spend the gift tokens received at Christmas in the likes of W.H Smith, Boots and HMV, the less so to go to the British Home Stores (BHS) to buy uniform and equipment for the dreaded return to school particularly after the longer holidays. 

Centrally located in Hull the BHS was originally purpose built and opened in 1963 as a large store for the Co-Operative Society, the Mutual enterprise which awarded a Dividend to its signed up Members. The philanthropic charter of the Co-Op included a desire, with available funding, to enrich the lives of the wider population and one way to achieve this was in the commissioning of works of art to adorn the exteriors and interiors of their retail premises. 

In my usual teenage moodiness on the periodic "back to school" jaunts to Hull I would keep my head down, shuffle along and have very little inclination for interaction with my parents, siblings, the general public and certainly not the built environment. 

Adopting this attitude, which I realise now in my senior years was ridiculous and not a little bit cringy , I completely missed out appreciating the beautiful mural that dominates the main western elevation of the BHS building. 

Designed by celebrated Wolverhampton artist and sculptor Alan Boyson, the large iconic mural is in Italian glass mosaic. 

The intricate nature of this material is not on first impression obvious from street level or the usual fleeting glance of pedestrians as they try to negotiate the busy road crossing and avoid double decker buses as they sweep through with great regularity. 

It is an expansive piece of work by Boyson, very much an upscaling of his previous works which prior to 1963 had included decorative features and the font of a church in Corby and perhaps his best known mural- the Tree of Knowledge  on a school in Salford, Manchester. 

The face of the Hull Co-Op mural  is fixed to a 66ft x 64ft concrete screen, itself a technical revelation for the post war construction era and is composed of 4224 slabs of one imperial foot square size. Each of these panels is made up of 225 tiny glass cubes. 

In all, a mind boggling total of just over 950,000 coloured pieces. 

The brief of the artist from the Co-Operative Society will have been to celebrate Hull and its people and what better than in the depiction of a maritime theme, on which the city had grown and thrived - specifically the fishing fleet.  

The inwardly curved facade is the by far the best part of an otherwise plain and boring functional, no frills multi storey building. 

The mural is of three, two masted stylised ships, the cross rigging resembling the silhouette of the crucifixion of Christ on the hill at Golgotha, perhaps an homage by Boyson to the ultimate sacrifice made by so many Hull trawlermen and seamen in pursuit of deep sea fishing and global ocean trade over previous centuries. Below the ships is a tempestuous looking mass of waves and the latin motto testifying to the effect of prosperity through work. 

The Co-Op building also became known as the Skyline Department Store with upper floors providing a cafe and other parts operating as a dance hall and a well known discotheque. 

In refurbishment works in 2011 the stripping of a panelled wall deep in the heart of the premises revealed another mural by Boyson of exaggeratedly large and expressive fish. It just seems to have been buried and forgotten and yet is complimentary to the main and very visible external masterpiece.

The mural is for the whole of the City being an excellent example of its kind from the post-war era which was a time of tremendous experimentation and exuberance for public art – as well as architecture. 

However, murals still tend to be regarded as fleeting, transient and unimportant although paintings and sculpture from this same period and often by the same artists are seen as fit subjects for gallery display and academic study. Many are still frequently ignored and even destroyed.

Post-war murals are an endangered species and the fate of Hull's iconic landmark is now in the balance. 

The very publicised and shameful demise of BHS saw the end of their forty year residency in the city centre and the building is, on and off, a matter of much speculation as to redevelopment or demolition and clearance. 

In 2016 Hull Civic Society applied for the mural to be Listed under the criteria of being of local significance and a nationally important historic structure. Such a designation affords greater protection under planning law. 

Precedent already existed with Boyson's "Tree of Knowledge" mural in Salford attaining Listed Status in 2009 with the reasons cited being;

• the high level of aesthetic and artistic quality represented in a bold and striking composition
• the clever use of colour, incised decoration, textures and mixed media, including ceramics, concrete, tiles and pebbles
• that it is a rare surviving example of a bespoke 1960s ceramic mural produced by the successful and prolific artist, Alan Boyson
• that it is a good example of the integration between art and architecture, and the 1950s/60s policy of enhancing communities through the incorporation of public art in the public realm.

Shockingly, the decision of Historic England, who have responsibility for Statutory Listing, was that the Hull Co-Operative mural did not reach the standard compared to other examples. News today is that alleged "asbestos in the substrate" has condemned the mural and its donor building to demolition.

It is bad enough to contemplate that Hull is to lose such a great example of muralism. 

Britain’s fine stock of murals is diminishing fast, as changing fashions, weather, vandalism and commercial pressures take their toll. 

Alan Boyson- muralist and sculptor