The Great Blondinis

 There's quite a lot of information about the sculpture entitled 'The Great Blondinis' by John Clinch which started off being installed in the town centre in 1987. It was then at some stage later moved into storage where it languished until approximately 2010 when artist Tim Carroll asked to see it. The paint had clearly deteriorated and Tim was keen to restore the two figures of acrobats to their former glory, including matching the original paint colours which he did very successfully. Gordon Dickinson took some amazing photos of that restoration which Angela Atkinson has included in her write up here.

Barry Leighton (Adver- 2013) has written about the artist and the Great Blondinis who were, he says, a theatrical troupe who named themselves after the famous French tightrope walker, Blondin. There is no mention of them living in Gorsehill, as suggested by someone recently as a reason why this prestigious sculpture now resides in St Marks Park, rather than taking pride of place in the town centre!

".........the Great Blondinis – or rather, a sculpture depicting the acrobatic troupe that performed at circuses in Swindon in the 1920s.

Garishly-coloured and 17ft tall, it is fashioned by John Clinch in 1987 with scraps of aluminium from Swindon’s railway works."

And in 2016, Barry Leighton wrote an interesting article on John Clinch and his Diana Dors and Great Blondini sculptures for Swindon:.

When Tim was recently asked by Central Swindon North Parish Council if he would give The Blondinis an overhaul and repaint them, he was pleased to do so, and I was keen to follow his progress and took a few photos. I realise that I only took photos of the finished work! There are no 'befores' only 'afters'

Because the sculpture is 17 feet tall, it had to be surrounded by scaffolding for Tim to be able to reach it all

Here's Tim with the sculpture

He must have a very steady hand to get this sort of effect

I rather liked the face

and this one is fabulous

and from the side looks amazing

Another close up of the female acrobat's body

a good shot of the umbrella

Above I thought this was an unusual photo of the top of her head

I was sorry I couldn't be at St Mark's recreation ground yesterday to take my own photo of Tim with The great Blondinis without the scaffolding, but here's one of the photos taken by Central Swindon North Parish Council, found on their Facebook page. Thank you for taking it.

One further piece of information Tim gave me was what the original plaque looked like, here it is:

 Only that wasn't the last piece of information. On the Facebook page, Gary Hazell has said 'the sculpture was made in the Works. 10 Shop to be precise'. Here's a photo of Gary Hazell and Hughie Royle:

It's great to have such a fabulous sculpture in Swindon, I'm looking forward to the unveiling of the new plaque.