John Buckley (born 1945 in

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

) is an English

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

whose best known work is the sculpture "Untitled 1986", better known as "the Shark House" or "

The Headington Shark The Headington Shark (proper name ''Untitled 1986'') is a rooftop sculpture located at 2 New High Street, Headington, Oxford, England, depicting a large shark embedded head-first in the roof of a house. It was protest art, put up without permiss ...

" in

Headington Headington is an eastern suburb of Oxford, in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is at the top of Headington Hill overlooking the city in the Thames valley below, and bordering Marston, Oxford, Marston to the north-west, Cowley, Oxfordshire ...

, a suburb of

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

. Buckley went to sculpture classes in the evenings when studying for his O-levels in a technical college. He went on to

Winchester School of Art Winchester School of Art is the art school of the University of Southampton, situated 10 miles (14 km) north of Southampton in the city of Winchester near the south coast of England. History Winchester School of Art (WSA) was founded in 1 ...

and Leicester College of Art. In 1976, his friend Bill Heine invited Buckley to design the sculptural fixtures on the Penultimate Picture Palace. For the facade Buckley chose a dramatic figure reminiscent of

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and ...

with outstretched hands.

Mae West Mary Jane "Mae" West (August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American actress, singer, comedian, screenwriter, and playwright whose career spanned more than seven decades. Recognized as a prominent sex symbol of her time, she was known ...

's lips were the inspiration for the cinema's door handles and, somewhat later Buckley would erect a male and a female figure above the toilet entrances, whimsically named Pearl and Dean. In 1978, a work of his (''Pagliaccio'') was exhibited by

Nicholas Treadwell Nicholas Treadwell (born 1937) owns the Nicholas Treadwell Gallery, which started in 1963 in touring vehicles, after which it was run in buildings in London, Bradford and finally Austria. Treadwell has promoted the Superhumanism art movement, whi ...

at the Washington Art Fair, and he stayed with Treadwell for some time thereafter. The "Headington Shark" was erected on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Made of

fibreglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass ( Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass c ...

on the farm near

Wallingford, Oxfordshire Wallingford () is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire, England, north of Reading, south of Oxford and north west of Henley-on-Thames. Although belonging to the historic county of Berkshire, it ...

where he was based, the shark itself weighs 203 kilograms and is 25 feet long. Buckley regards it as an integral part of "Untitled 1986" or "Shark House", a work of "''Mixed Media, Brick, slates, wood, metal, polyester resin, glass, plaster, oil paint, lace curtaining and window boxes…….''" In the village of

Checkendon Checkendon is a village and civil parish about west of Henley-on-Thames in South Oxfordshire and about north west of Reading in Berkshire on a mid-height swathe of the Chilterns. History The parish records exist from the 7th century. The vi ...

South Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a p ...

is his public work 'The Nuba Survival' which features two giant skeletons embracing each other. The piece was created in 2001 after he visited the

Nuba peoples The Nuba people are indigenous inhabitants of southern Sudan. The Nuba are made up of 50 various indigenous ethnic groups who inhabit the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state in Sudan, encompassing multiple distinct people that speak differ ...

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

. John Buckley is a patron of MAG (

Mines Advisory Group The Mines Advisory Group (MAG) is a non-governmental organization that assists people affected by landmines, unexploded ordnance, and small arms and light weapons. MAG takes a humanitarian approach to landmine action. They focus on the impact o ...

),John Buckley,
Can art influence politics
, johnbuckleysculptor.co.uk. Accessed 2010-08-18. a neutral and impartial

humanitarian Humanitarianism is an ideology centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotiona ...

organisation.

References

External links

John Buckley website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buckley, John 1945 births Living people Artists from Leeds Alumni of the University of Southampton Alumni of De Montfort University English sculptors English male sculptors