An artist in Liverpool has created a statue inspired by the title character in the Beatles' 1966 song "Eleanor Rigby," crafted of £1 million pounds in old bank notes. As the Liverpool Echo reports, the sculpture has gone up on display at the Museum of Liverpool in the Beatles' hometown.
The artist, Leonard Brown, said that life-sized statue is intended to highlight the relationship between wealth and poverty. "The sculpture serves to show people that money isn’t the only way to make you happy, or indeed 'buy you love' and we should all be thankful for what we have," he said. "There are people in every town and city like Eleanor Rigby who live a lonely life, and whose only worldly goods are kept in the bags that they carry."
The used £5, £10 and £20 notes that make up the sculpture were supplied by the Bank of England in the form of shredded pellets, some of which fill the chest cavity, and some of which were further broken down and molded over the figure's steel frame.
Although Brown has added a new twist to the imagery by using the shredded bank notes, his is not the first sculptor to give material form to the Beatles' creation. In 1982, British entertainer Tommy Steele designed and erected a bronze statue of Rigby sitting on a stone bench on Stanley Street in Liverpool, dedicated to "all the lonely people." Brown's new sculpture will be on display at the Museum of Liverpool until January 2015.
