TORONTO, CANADA.- The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art presents Battle of Britain - Terracottas and other work, on view through January 15, 2007. The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art presents the two full-scale terracotta models for the bronze reliefs on the London monument dedicated to the Battle of Britain. Situated near Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, the monument honours all those who participated in the air and on the ground in the great four-month battle in 1940 to save Britain from a Nazi invasion.

Sculptor Paul Day has truly created a “people’s monument.” One relief shows several moments in a fighter pilot’s day, beginning as he waits with his dog for the bombing raid alert. The centre section, the “scramble,” features life-size pilots rushing for their planes; then the pilot under attack; and the narrative ends with a group of the young men exchanging stories and information, trying to relax after the fight. The other relief turns to the ordinary folk who carried on with extraordinary work during the Battle: anti-aircraft gunners, relief workers, munitions makers, all going about their business while overhead a dogfight between a Spitfire and a Me109 is taking place, and St. Paul’s Cathedral stands out as a beacon of hope amidst the wreckage. In all these vignettes Day has captured the doggedness, humour, sense of loss, and sheer bravery that are at the heart of this Battle. The exhibition includes information on Canada’s role in the Battle of Britain written by Canadian historian Jack Granatstein.

Day was invited to submit his design for the competition that he won, based on a work he had previously been commissioned to make. Brussels: urban comedy is an 11-metre long relief sculpture, from which two sections are also being exhibited at the Gardiner. This is the tale of a town, seen historically, politically, architecturally, and most of all humanly. Day’s overall tone is ironic, intending to emphasize, as he does in The Battle of Britain, the importance of civility, of human life, and of the sense of place that a country or a city must cherish.