'Reimagined' Kettering Grammar School mosaic donated to revamped art gallery

The final piece in a long-running art saga has been put in place as a replica mosaic of one that once adorned Kettering Grammar School returned to the town.

Mosaic maker Oliver Budd, son of the original artist Kenneth Budd, returned to the yet-to-be-reopened Alfred East Art Gallery to handover the long-awaited artwork.

A campaign by Kettering Civic Society had saved the original tiles from destruction when the old Tresham College, to which the mosaic was attached, was demolished.

The tiles later disintegrated in storage but the design was painstakingly reproduced on a scaled-down size.

Kettering Civic Society secretary Monica Ozdemir has worked for nearly two decades to fund the return of the mosaic to a permanent prominent position.

She said: “I feel elated. The feeling now is like when I gave birth. Art is what defines us. Art is what makes us human. This is what it’s all about. Every piece of that mosaic is part of me. Every person can identify with the content. It’s so brilliant and it’s the best possible outcome.”

The mosaic was created in the summer of 1962 when Kenneth Budd took on his first commission to create a public artwork representing Kettering’s history.

Abstract images included Kettering’s coat of arms with local industries with boot, shoe, clothing and iron foundries all featuring. Taking more than two months to complete, he pieced together the incredibly heavy 45ft by 15ft multicoloured work using household tiles.

After the demise of Kettering Grammar School (then Kettering Boys’ School) the 1960s Windmill Avenue building was taken over by Tresham College. In 2006, the college announced a rebuild and the demolition of the mosaic’s ‘home’. Kettering Civic society launched an urgent campaign to fund the safe removal and storage of the mosaic raising an estimated £6,000.

In the intervening period the thousands of original tesserae tiles disintegrated in storage, damaged by frost and damp. A replica, one-fifth of the size of the original, has been created by Oliver Budd who said he felt ‘guilty’ when he realised the tiles couldn’t be used.

He said: “I’m relieved it’s over. It’s the longest genesis of any mosaic I’ve worked on. It would have been easy to give up. My father had a great love of art for the people. It’s a landmark – there’s so much history."

A documentary charting the story of the Kettering mosaic has been paid for using £9,000 funding from Historic England via the Kettering Cultural Consortium as part of the Heritage Action Zone project.

Presented by Victoria Wicks, granddaughter of HE Bates, the film by UK Film School will be premiered later this year.

The second of the educational cartoon strips ‘Kettering News’, written by Monica and designed by Max Champion, has been published to complement the project.

The mosaic will have pride of place in the new Cornerstone complex where people can admire Oliver Budd’s new artwork created from frost-proof ceramic tiles and glass.

He used his father’s original painted design as a template making it a more accurate representation of the original plans to be displayed next to the new mosaic.

Monica said: “The precious painting is the jewel in the crown. All in all it’s perfect – an artwork in an art gallery."