Public art and regional identity. Sheffield; Steel city? A changing picture

This paper will consider: the place that steel, and steel associated industry, has had in the history of Sheffield’s identity; it will look at the changing attitude to steel production; and therefore the changing relationship between steel manufacture and civic pride / local identity - as seen in its public sculpture and monuments - firstly looking at a period encompassing the late c.19th / early c. 20th and secondly the contemporary period; from the early 1980s onwards. It is therefore a paper of two halves: the first will trace the earlier history through a close look at the debates that surrounded one particular commission - Edward V11 Memorial, Fitzalan Square. This will be followed by a brief consideration of more recent public sculpture. I aim to demonstrate that this earlier period can be understood, as a denial of Sheffield’s primary industry. Whilst the contemporary period has been marked by a celebration of Steel.