History
The Godiva Awards evolved from the original and much-loved Coventry and Warwickshire Promotions Member Awards of the 1990's - and the tradition of recognising the contribution of our Membership to the region is powerfully carried forward into the much expanded Godiva Awards of today.
Geography
The Awards have developed over the last decade to be the largest lifestyle awards in the region, covering a geographical area stretching from South of Birmingham through Coventry, Solihull, Rugby, Nuneaton, Bedworth and the Warwickshire heartlands of Leamington Spa, Kenilworth, Stratford-upon Avon and Warwick.
Population
The awards cover a population of 1.2 million people and more than 10,000 individual businesses in the UK lifestyle, leisure, retail and wider tourism economy. Last year more than 650 businesses were nominated for just seventeen awards and the event itself attracted close to 1000 guests at the prestigious Belgrade Theatre in Coventry.
Statistics
Today the Godiva Awards generates more than 100,000 web hits per week generating 22,000 plus visitors, 30,000 votes and in excess of 10,000 competition entries from more than 50 countries - making them the fastest growing lifestyle awards in the United Kingdom.
Awards Sculpture
The idea for an award to celebrate Coventry and Warwickshire needed an image and brand as powerful and inspirational as the city and region it would represent. George Wagstaffe, one of the finest sculptors in Europe, has been commissioned to create and sculpt a bronze representing Godiva in the 21st Century. Here is the story behind this award and many other outstanding works by George Wagstaffe.
George Wagstaffe sculpting
George Wagstaffe studied at Coventry College of Art and later attended courses at Leicester College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, University of London. In 1958 he won a prize for his sculpture, Naiad (water nymph), at the Young Contemporaries exhibition held at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. As a consequence of this early success he received his first public commission. The Coventry city architect, Arthur Ling, saw the Naiad at the Young Contemporaries and in 1960 a bronze copy of it was made for the Earl Street Courtyard in Coventry. Arthur Ling then commissioned the Phoenix which now stands in Hertford Street in the city centre. George Wagstaffe has since worked on a number of local and national commissions and it is these and related works that provide the thematic content of this current exhibition.
The Naiad initiated a number of drawings, paintings and other sculptures that explored the female form and rocks in a mythical context. The Phoenix, commissioned during the postwar reconstruction of Coventry, functions as both a memorial and a symbol of rebirth. These early works established some of the key themes and metaphors that appear in George's subsequent work, particularly the work of the last decade. The theme of rebirth and resurrection can be seen in the working models for Resurgence, a major work in bronze commissioned for the Shell Chemical Headquarters near Chester. Rather than represent an oil company through mechanistic imagery, George chose a symbolist approach, expressing figuratively the resurgence of dormant powers released from below the ground. The transformation of organic matter into energy is personified in the primeval figures with eyeless heads that surge up through the earth towards the unseen daylight. The Naiad prompted a chain of ideas exploring the dichotomies of organic and mineral form; of women against rocks, in which the vulnerability of the flesh is set against hard, inert, crystalline, brittle and crumbling substances. Similar dichotomies of vulnerability and strength can be seen in the Egg and Rock bronzes where the fragile egg, breaking on a column, suggest new life at its point of destruction. The breaking eggs appear to inseminate the inert masses, suggesting the possibility of new life cracking open the unyielding rocks or re-energising decayed and dead organic matter. Like the Phoenix, the egg is a symbol of resurrection and rebirth.
Similar ideas are embodied in the ambiguous female torsos which reveal not just their pregnant state, but also the ruthless, exploitative, and ultimate destructive powers of nature. The theme of rejuvenation is the subject of the bronze, What Remains of Us is Love, installed at Coundon Court School in Coventry. It is inspired by Phillip Larkin's Arundel Tomb - a poem that reflects on immortal love inspired by the tomb effigies of a knight and his lady. As well as the theme of rejuvenation, there is also that of redemption in other works.
The imagery of Millennium, another sculpture at Coundon Court School, was influenced by the cloaked figure in John Flaxman's drawing of the Funeral of Agamemnon (and possibly subconsciously by Rodin's Balzac). It alludes to spiritual growth out of suffering and this idea of redemption is also expressed in the bronze bust of Mary Magdalene in the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Coventry. While her face expresses sadness, suffering, longing and bewilderment, other levels of expression and symbolism are conveyed in more covert form. The surface fissures on this clocked figure suggest water streams, tears and cleansing, and there are cavities and rough passages that fuse the figure with landscape, ambiguously suggesting broken trees, decay, bones and rock formations. These latter qualities emerged after the clay cast was deliberately shattered and rebuilt as a part of the making process.
In this manner George Wagstaffe's ideas are shaped by processes, materials and a deep environmental awareness. The thematic content is not something that is willed from the outset, but grows naturally, organically and sometimes unconsciously out of this physical engagement with the materials at hand. To quote George himself:
"The crumbling, stained, partly broken, directly worked qualities of plaster are often healed somewhat by the bronzefounder, and it is these very qualities which are so important to my present ideas. The starting point of the sculpture is often the material itself, breaking into Polystyrene, crumbling it away, then rebuilding it with plaster, negative and positive. Influences come from walks through ancient monuments or buildings, partly decaying, partly standing, or a group of trees and rocks ravaged by time."
Both Mary Magdalene and his latest work, Godiva, mark a significant change of direction towards a more traditional, figurative mode of working. It is a style that affirms and strengthens the symbolist content that permeates all his work. These latest works are prompted by a deep reflection on those sculptors who have provided him with inspiration since his youth - namely Donatello, Michelangelo, and especially Rodin. They also bring his work stylistically back full circle to the mythological figure of the Naiad, which has now been restored and relocated to Lady Herbert's Garden in Coventry. This return to the water nymph can also been seen in a new work which has been gestating in his studio for many years.
Godiva continues the theme of the female steeped in legend. This is not the naked woman on horseback we all know so well, but a cloaked, introspective figure holding a book. She expresses strength, courage, piety and compassion, and the book enigmatically suggests a manifold of knowledge, wisdom, history and contemplation. Above all, it symbolises her story and the enduring myth she became. Like all of George Wagstaffe's work it embodies universal values we can recognise, and it is the depth of interpretation that makes Godiva a powerful icon for the City of Coventry.
Dr Richard Yeomans
University of Warwick
August 2004
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