Public Art in Bath, Bristol and Somerset

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About Public Art in Bath, Bristol and Somerset

This gallery is for images of public artworks in Bath, Bristol and Somerset, sculptures, installations, murals etc including performance and conceptual artworks. Only high quality graffiti images are acceptableof the Banksy kind, cartons and tags etc will be removed as there are many groups catering for standard graffiti on Flickr.

This gallery was inspired by the ‘King Bladud’s Pigs’ art event in Bath, with one hundred individually decorated life-size pig sculptures displayed throughout the summer of 2008 around the city centre. This public art event celebrates the legend of King Bladud who is reputed to have discovered the natural hot springs (long before the Romans arrived and turned them into the Roman Baths) whilst looking after his pigs. According to the legend, Bladud was cast out of his royal family to become a swineherd because he had contracted leprosy and was cured after bathing with his pigs in the hot bubbling muddy pools, returning to his rightful kingship as a result and so founded the city of Bath around the springs. (There is more than a whiff of Shrek about this tale for me!)

There is an excellent site dedicated exclusively to celebrating the pigs at www.flickr.com/groups/kingbladudspigs/

David Lewis-Baker,
Bath, June 2008

http://www.flickr.com/groups/public_art_in_bath_and_bristol/