When the British pop artist Nicholas Monro was asked to make a public sculpture for Birmingham in the 1970s, he raised a few eyebrows when he produced an 18ft fibreglass statue of King Kong.
“It was really just a finger up to the system. They wanted something typical and boring, so he gave them a massive gorilla,” said Monro’s son Claude. “I think there was a certain amount of ‘Is this art? What is this?’” added Joe, Claude’s elder brother.
But on Friday, a recreation of the statue returned to the city 50 years after the original, to an outpouring of joy and nostalgia. While it was craned into position, people were already queuing to take pictures of it, with many reminiscing about their memories of seeing it as a child.
“Now with its homecoming, I think it has gone a full 180 degrees and people are literally welcoming him with open arms,” said Joe, speaking on behalf of his father who could not attend the unveiling for health reasons. “He’s really over the moon that we’ve managed to produce this and it’s a fair reflection of what he did by hand all those years ago.”
Working closely with Monro – now in his 80s and living in Dorset – and his family, local property development company Cordia Blackswan borrowed the maquette of the original statue from Wolverhampton Art Gallery to create a new, and slightly bigger, version of the artwork.
“I wanted it to be a bit bigger, because everybody saw it when they were a child. So coming back, I didn’t want them to think ‘Oh no, it’s not as big as I remember it’. So it’s 20% bigger all round,” said Joe. “[The original] was only here for seven months, but it was long enough to leave a lasting mark on the city.”
After its stint in Birmingham’s Manzoni Gardens (now subsumed by the Bullring shopping centre), Birmingham city council decided not to buy the original statue at a reduced price of £2,000.
Instead, it was bought by a local secondhand car dealership, renamed King Kong Car Co, that installed the statue on site, dressing it up as Santa Claus every Christmas.
In 1976, the statue was sold to entrepreneur Nigel Maby, and displayed in a market in Edinburgh where it was, at one point, painted tartan and suffered a broken arm when vandalised.
The gorilla statue now resides in the garden of Maby’s widow in Cumbria and has been displayed on rare occasions, though she has turned down offers to sell it. Monro himself retreated from the art world, and has produced few pieces since King Kong.
His family said they were delighted to see that the original details of the statue had been maintained, including the hands that Monro modelled on his own. “When you look at the fingernails, I know it’s my dad,” said Claude.
The new version of the statue will be on display in a pop-up park in Birmingham for the next two weeks, to coincide with the Commonwealth Games, with hopes that a permanent home can be found in the city.
“[Monro] didn’t know that King Kong has this second life in Birmingham after he left,” said Marcus Hawley, the managing director of Cordia Blackswan. “His opinion of it was that people hated it here. So when we told him that actually they love him and want him back, it was a hugely emotional journey for everyone involved.”
