This piece dates from 1984 and was originally commissioned for its present site by John Barry for Merseyside County Council. The cost was integrated into that of the remodelling of Copperas Hill and St. Vincent Way/Street but from 1984 to 1992 the sculpture stood in a neglected corner alongside the junction. In 1992 the immediate area around Sea Circle was landscaped and benches installed but more recently Seymour Street has been widened to take two-way traffic and the original northbound line of St. Vincent's Way/Street has been abandoned. The sculpture once sat in an oasis of calm but is now in danger of disappearing once more under neglected urban scrub. Sea Circle is based on the shape of an ammonite shell and although cast in bronze, appears as if cut from one sheet of metal twisted through ninety degrees. Charlotte Mayer was born in Prague in 1929 and is now based in Stroud. She has said that the shell/spiral form was a reflection of maritime Liverpool and the departure and return of its sailors but more recently she has expressed the view that "I believe that a sculpture should speak for itself. It should need no verbal description".

Sources:
The Public Sculpture Of Liverpool by Terry Cavanagh
Patronage and Practice: Sculpture On Merseyside, Liverpool by Alex Kidson
21st Century Sculpture
The Garden Gallery 

Alan Maycock © 2007

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