Black Sabbath guitarist present first of 250 paintings of his band's Broad Street bench
Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has been presented with a new picture of his band's "heavy metal bench" in Birmingham.
The picture, created by local artist Paula Gabb, looks down on the canal from the Barajee Indian restaurant opposite the bench on Broad Street, which has become a major landmark for tourists to the city. In all 250 special editions were created and now 249 are for sale to the public.
Westside Business Improvement District (BID), where the bench is located, spotted what was originally a digital picture on the web and then commissioned Gabb to reproduce and refine it as a one-off work of art.
The BID has now delivered it to Tony Iommi’s Midlands home as a ‘thank you’ present for the star’s continued support for the district.
Iommi, who unwrapped and viewed the picture for the first time on a bench in his back garden this week, said: “Thank you Westside! It’s a great painting and I’m so chuffed to see the Back Sabbath bench depicted in such colourful art.”
Mike Olley, general manager of Westside BID, said: "Tony has shown fantastic commitment with his willingness to turn out in person on Westside over the years, and we wanted to find a special way of saying ‘thank you’.
“When we first saw this painting by Paula, I shared an image of it with Tony and he expressed his delight and pleasure at the work and how it had so accurately depicted the bench.
“I knew then that this would make a great gift for him and am delighted that the picture is now hanging in his home studio.”
Mr Olley added: “We thought it would be a nice touch to produce a limited edition run of 250 copies of the picture, and we’re sure they will sell quickly.”
Artist Gabb expressed how “thrilled” she was that her special commission from Westside BID had been gifted to Tony Iommi.
She said: "The Black Sabbath bench has always been one of those things that I wanted to capture in a painting and I was thrilled when it was in the view from the Barajee.
"The painting just captures everything I wanted – the length of the canal, the edge of Brindleyplace and the lovely bench which is in such a great spot on the canal bridge."
