Frieze

A full on day at work, so another chance to introduce you to some of the architectural features that I pass en route to and from the railway station.This frieze by Joseph Thewlis forms part of the frontage of the former West Riding Union Bank at 18, Park Row. 

Built in 1900, my Pevsner informs me that the frieze is meant to represent: “…shipping interests in Africa and American railroad investment”, with Minerva on a throne in between two panels.  This panel (main image) is mainly related to the American side, with Native Americans, railroad engineers, bison and a locomotive. The scene then somewhat awkwardly transitions to a North African vignette on the right.

Clearly representations like this need to be contextualised and viewed critically, rather than just seen as decorative elements of the streetscape, particularly as they convey exploitative and colonial interests.  When this scene was carved, it was already thirteen years since the first visit of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show to the UK. The mythology of the American West was being reconstituted. The first Western film, ‘Kidnapping by Indians’ was a British silent made in 1899. This iconography will have been very familiar in turn of the century Leeds. Yet sculptural representation of persons of colour are incredible rare in British public art.