The remarkable story behind JCB sculptor who fled the Nazis as a child and went on to become a prodigious artist
NOW WALENTY PYTEL IS THE SUBJECT OF A NEW BIOGRAPHY
THE story of the famous British sculptor Walenty Pytel, who created the JCB “Fossor” sculpture in Rocester, has been revealed in a new biography documenting his journey from war-torn Europe to his prestigious workshop
Pytel, whose works have made him a world-renowned artist, has been adding steel to the nation’s landscape for almost six decades, with tens of thousands of people seeing his striking creations across the UK every day.
The Fossor, which sits adjacent to the JCB plant in the countryside, derives from the Latin for “digger”, and is made entirely of JCB parts, weighing 36 tonnes and standing 45ft high. At the time it was built in 1979, it was Europe’s largest steel sculpture, a record which has since been overtaken.
The impressive Jubilee Fountain Sculpture at the Houses of Parliament, which marked the 25th anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne, and Take Off, Three Egrets in Flight outside Birmingham Airport are just two of his bestknown works. The former was paid for by MPs as a gift to the Queen.
The internationally acclaimed artist, whose work has been sold in Europe, Japan and the Middle East, has completed around 30 major public works, along with hundreds of commercial and private commissions at home and abroad.
Princess Anne and the late Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, who was Britain’s wealthiest landowner, are among the many prestigious customers to have called on Pytel’s services over the years.
The sculptor personally delivered a steel unicorn to Buckingham Palace after the princess commissioned it as a gift for the Portuguese Government for her official visit in 1979. Lord Belmore, of Castle Coole in Northern Ireland, commissioned Snipe as a wedding present for the duke in 1978.
Pytel’s sculptures of birds and beasts are highly prized by collectors who marvel at his ability to fashion beauty out of welded steel and bronze. Yet few could imagine the barbaric world he was born into.
As a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby, born in occupied Poland during the Second World War, the Nazis stole him from his mother and gave him to a Gestapo officer and his childless wife. The intention was that he should be brought up as a “true Aryan”.
There the young Walenty would have remained, had it not been for the bravery of his mother Jadwiga. Having escaped from a prison camp, she managed to snatch him back while he was asleep in his pram in the couple’s garden.
The young mother and her son then embarked on a dangerous, epic journey, fleeing over the Alps into Italy. Eventually, Pytel arrived as a five-year-old refugee in England, where he has lived since 1945.
The full story is recounted for the first time in Walenty Pytel Life|Art|Sculpture, a collaborative project between writer Catherine A Gilling and photographer Jason Hodges with a foreword by journalist and critic Quentin Letts.
An accompanying film, Sculptures in the Sky, combines interviews with the artist and footage of his life and work set to original music by Randolph Alexander.
Now aged 80, Pytel suffered a stroke in 2007 after being seriously injured in a fall from the roof of his country house. Alone at the time, he managed to crawl to his bed where he was found three days later. Although the accident has blurred some of his earliest memories, he clearly recalls being on the beach in Italy and having a “wonderful time.”
As a toddler, he was even reported missing after boarding a train in wartime Rome to enjoy his first big solo adventure. He was not found until the next day when he spoke animatedly about riding on “an engine and two wagons”.
For Walek, as he was affectionately known, it was the first of many memorable escapades as a child and adult. But his home life was often far from easy.
While living in Herefordshire after the war, Walenty’s mother suffered from mental health problems, thought to have been brought on by her wartime experiences.
Beheadings and other atrocities were rife. She also faced the threat of being raped by marauding soldiers since she was a single mother after Walenty’s natural father was imprisoned for forging money, leaving her to fend for herself.
According to Pytel’s family, Jadwiga or Nina as she later became known, was sent to Hereford County and City Lunatic Asylum for a week for trying to poison her second husband.
“On another occasion, she tried to chop off her neighbour’s arm with an axe over the garden fence,” writes Gilling. “Axing of hands was common practice in Volhynia as a punishment and way of making men useless to fight or work. It was almost certainly something she would have witnessed in her youth.”
In the only authorised biography of the sculptor, she adds: “Walenty’s early history was pieced together by surviving relatives on his mother’s side who now live in Russia and consider themselves to be fully Russian.”
The author further reveals that “his good friends of many decades have no idea of his challenging start in life or even of his darker moods, recognising him only as the outgoing, spirited eccentric artist that they know and love.”
Pytel’s talent was recognised early on when he was accepted as a student by Hereford Art College at 15.
A pivotal moment occurred while he was recovering in hospital from a freak accident that could easily have killed him. While out shooting he was inadvertently shot by a friend and had to have emergency surgery on a shattered thigh bone (the bullet is still in his leg). He was kept in hospital for eight months amid fears of lead poisoning.
The 24-year-old made various paper sculptures as a thank-you to the nurses and doctors. One remarked it was a pity such a beautiful gift was not made from a more lasting material so she could keep it forever. It got him thinking. He decided to make his art more permanent and switched to steel.
While the Rocester sculpture is his largest public sculpture, his most emotive piece is also in nearby.
The Colin Grazier Memorial in Tamworth consists of three anchors seemingly suspended in mid-air, held together by a genuine ship’s anchor chain itself weighing more than two tonnes. It was erected to commemorate three unsung heroes who helped change the course of the Second World War.
The memorial is dedicated to Able Seaman Colin Grazier and Lieutenant Tony Fasson who died recovering vital Enigma codebooks from a sinking German U-boat. Their shipmate, Tommy Brown, who was involved in the action, is also remembered.
The capture led to the cracking of the Germans’ Enigma communications code which helped the Allies win the Battle of the Atlantic and ultimately the war.
Walenty was moved by the story and the fact that the Poles played a vital part in the achievement by handing their early work on the
Enigma code to the British.
Pytel’s versatility, so evident in his public works, has been demonstrated elsewhere, for example with five life-sized Vikings produced for the Grandeur of the Seas cruise liner, and the giant Dragonfly and Butterfly Millennium Sculptures in Bristol.
His extensive list of public art also includes The Woodpecker, erected outside Bulmer’s cider factory in Hereford, the Leaping Salmon in the centre of Ross-on-Wye, Horse and Rider in Birmingham, Wings over Water Gateway which graces a footbridge over the Coventry Canal and Hereford’s 4Runner sculpture depicting a futuristic sprinter.
The turmoil of the sculptor’s early years continued as a young adult when he fell in love with a fellow art college student Mary Spencer. Mary came from a well-respected farming family from the Leominster area.
Her parents strongly objected to her forming a romantic attachment to “a penniless refugee whose only ambition was to become an artist”.
Mary’s mother even complained about the “undesirable” relationship to the college principal, demanding he take action. Reluctant to lose his star pupil, he expelled Mary instead. Despite this, their liaison continued, albeit in an “on-off” way.
In a scene reminiscent of The Graduate, the ardent, young lover jumped on his Vespa scooter and headed to Kent where Mary was staying with the family of a man deemed to be a more worthy suitor.
Once there, Walenty persuaded her to leave with him and the pair headed to a bed and breakfast in London with Mary’s luggage secured to the back of his scooter before returning home soon afterwards to her outraged parents.
While at college, Pytel won a design competition for Derby Airways in 1960. The prize was a return flight to Jersey, so he proudly took his girlfriend along. No accommodation was included and they were forced to camp on the beach.
The couple married three years later in Leominster and went on to have two children. They later divorced but still live together in a magnificent Queen Anne mansion overlooking a lake near Rosson-Wye.
After miraculously surviving his roof fall, the sculptor had to learn to talk and walk again, but his enduring passion for his art remains. Puffing on a Cuban cigar or his pipe, the now white-haired genius pours over his creations for hours at a time with the vigour of a much younger man.
His last major public work, completed in 2019, was Kingfisher with Minnow , commissioned by the Hereford Cider Museum to celebrate 50 years since the unveiling of The
Woodpecker by the late Sir Peter Scott, son of the famous Antarctic explorer.
In his leisure time, he enjoys the pursuits of a quintessential English gentleman, including shooting and fishing. Salmon fishing is central to his craft as he draws his inspiration from the nature surrounding him.
He is proud to own a prime stretch of the River Monnow near his home where he indulges his hobby.
The artist takes his surname from his stepfather Peter Pytel. Walenty was very close to him but had no idea growing up that he was not his biological father. It was only when he was 28 that his mother screamed the truth at him in a rage.
His real father, it emerged, was a Ukrainian painter by the name of Leonid Lapko, whom she had married before the war when a teenager. By all accounts, he too was a brilliant artist.
For more information about Walenty Pytel, visit walentypytel. com.
The young mother and her son embarked on a dangerous, epic journey, fleeing across the Alps. He arrived in England in 1945.