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Mural

Soho mural - figure

Erection date: 1989

This figure may be intended to represent Shelley himself.

Site: Percy Shelley - W1 (3 memorials)

W1, Poland Street, 15

The English Heritage plaque is on this corner building, in Poland Street. The apparent blue plaque just below the mural, is painted to mimic a blue plaque.

In the mural we have interrupted a black-haired young man (woman?) who had been reading a book while sitting/standing (in a very odd pose) in front of a green field with trees in the background. In the foreground is a solitary tree that has been blasted in two. To the right the branches of another tree can be seen, the tree itself being outside the frame. The foreground trees are shedding their leaves as if it were autumn but the background trees are still in green leaf. We ourselves are just inside an arcade, the arches of which can be see at the top of the mural.

The wild, dark hair suggests the figure with the book may represent Shelley himself.

Sadly, the mural has suffered some damp damage, creating a vertical grey line towards the right-hand edge.

explains that the Ode explores the death and decay that the autumn winds usher in and suggests that the subject of this 1989 mural may have been prompted by the Great Storm of 1987.

Credit for this entry to: Bob Baker

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This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
Soho mural - figure

Subjects commemorated i

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Poet. Born at Field Place, near Horsham in Sussex. Had a habit of eloping wit...

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This section lists the subjects who helped to create/erect the memorial on this page:
Soho mural - figure

Created by i

Louise Vines

Artist with the London Wall (women's) mural collective/group. Active 1989. S...

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This section lists the other memorials at the same location as the memorial on this page:
Soho mural - figure

Also at this site i

Percy Shelley - W1

Percy Shelley - W1

Shelley lodged here after he was expelled from Oxford.

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Soho mural - faux plaque

Soho mural - faux plaque

The Soho Mural 'Ode to the West Wind', 1989, Louise Vines for London Wall 01 ...

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