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.

Untitled 1986
The Headington Shark in 2007, before refurbishment
ArtistJohn Buckley
Year1986
TypeSculpture
MediumPainted fibreglass
Dimensions7.6 m (25 ft)
LocationHeadington, Oxford

Description and location
The Headington Shark in 2009, after refurbishment.

The shark first appeared on 9 August 1986, having been commissioned by the house's owner Bill Heine, a local radio presenter.[1] The painted fibreglass sculpture weighs 4 long hundredweight (200 kg)[2] is 25 feet (7.6 m) long,[3] and is named Untitled 1986 (written on the gate of the house).[4] It took three months to build.[5]

The sculpture was erected on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.[3] It was designed by sculptor John Buckley and constructed by Anton Castiau, a local carpenter and friend of Buckley. Heine said "The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation... It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki".[2] The structure is in deliberate contrast with its otherwise ordinary suburban setting.[4]

For the occasion of the shark's 21st anniversary in August 2007, it was renovated by the sculptor,[1] following earlier complaints about the condition of the sculpture and the house.[6]

On 26 August 2016 Heine's son Magnus Hanson-Heine bought the house in order to preserve the Shark.[7] The property has been run as an AirBnB guesthouse since 2018.[4]

Controversy

Created by sculptor John Buckley, the shark was controversial when it first appeared. Oxford City Council tried to have it taken down on grounds of safety, and then on the grounds that it had not given planning permission for the shark, offering to host it at the local swimming pool instead, but there was much local support for the shark.[8] Eventually the matter was taken to the central government, where Tony Baldry, a minister in the Department of the Environment, who assessed the case on planning grounds, ruled in 1992 that the shark would be allowed to remain as it did not result in harm to the visual amenity.[1][9]

Media appearances

Throughout the early 1990s, updates on the controversy surrounding the shark were regularly featured on As It Happens, an interview show on CBC Radio.

The unexpected shark appeared in a 2002 newspaper advertising campaign for a new financial advice service offered by Freeserve. The advertisement, designed by M&C Saatchi, featured a photograph of the house with the caption "Freedom to find the mortgage that's right for you".[10]

Heine wrote a short book about the shark, which was published in 2011.[11]

In 2013, the sculpture was the subject of an April Fools' Day story in the Oxford Mail, which announced the establishment of a fictitious £200,000 fund by Oxford City Council to support the creation of similar sculptures on the roofs of other homes in the area.[12]

In 2015, the sculpture was featured in the Channel 4 programme Damned Designs, which focuses on properties that have not followed planning permission.

See also

References
  1. "Shark comes of age". Oxford Mail. 8 August 2007. Archived from the original on 9 January 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  2. "The Headington Shark". Unofficial Headington Website. 10 October 2009. Retrieved 18 January 2010.
  3. "In praise of... the Headington shark". The Guardian. 9 August 2007. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  4. "The Headington Shark, Oxford". www.headington.org.uk. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
  5. Mohdin, Aamna (7 April 2019). "'It went in beautifully as the postman was passing': the story of the Headington Shark". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  6. "Shabby shark house angers residents". Oxford Times. 12 December 2003. Archived from the original on 18 May 2007. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  7. "Why I snapped up the Headington shark house", The Guardian, 12 March 2017
  8. Purves, Libby (9 August 2007). "Let's salute fibreglass fish and wacky artists". The Times. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  9. MacKinnon, Ian (22 May 1992). "Officials reprieve shark for Art's sake". The Independent. p. 2.
  10. "Shark adds bite to advert". Oxford Mail. 14 November 2002.
  11. Heine, Bill. (2011). The hunting of the shark. Oxford: OxfordFolio. ISBN 9780956740526. OCLC 773696300.
  12. Jennings, Tom (1 April 2013). "Shark 's tale is given £200k of added bite". The Oxford Mail.

Further reading
  • Heine, Bill (2011). The Hunting of the Shark. Oxford: Oxfordfolio. ISBN 978-0-9567405-2-6.
  • Dorris Heffron as portraying Bill Heine in Oxford (1996). A Shark in the House. Toronto: Key Porter Books. ISBN 1-55013-742-5.

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