{"id":291293,"date":"2025-11-18T16:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T16:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/291293\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T16:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T16:00:08","slug":"glasgow-artist-swaps-duke-of-wellington-statues-traffic-cone-for-paper-reading-pigeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/291293\/","title":{"rendered":"Glasgow artist swaps Duke of Wellington statue’s traffic cone for paper-reading pigeon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThe Rebel Bear<\/p>\n

The statue appeared on Monday<\/p>\n

Glasgow’s famous Duke of Wellington statue has taken on a new look – after a street artist added an extra sculpture on top of it.<\/p>\n

The statue outside the city’s Gallery of Modern Art typically has a traffic cone perched on its head – a tradition believed to date back to at least the 1980s<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However on Monday a second model, showing a pigeon reading a newspaper with a small traffic cone atop its head, was added.<\/p>\n

The addition is the work of street artist the Rebel Bear, who came to fame for street art in Glasgow<\/a> during the coronavirus lockdown. <\/p>\n

Artist swaps Duke of Wellington cone for pigeon reading a newspaper<\/p>\n

The artist – who has been dubbed the Scottish Banksy for his style by some admirers – declined to comment on the new artwork when asked by BBC Scotland.<\/p>\n

His Instagram post, showing pictures of it, stated: “The dignified and undignified beasts.<\/p>\n

“Located: well, youse (sic) know where.”<\/p>\n

It depicts a pigeon reading a pun-filled newspaper, with stories about a seagull gang, a park bench “poop crisis” and a sports story about a pigeon race. <\/p>\n

The post was greeted enthusiastically on social media, with comments saying it should win “the Scottish Art of the Year award” and that it should remain permanently in place. <\/p>\n

Why does the Duke of Wellington statue have a cone on his head?<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The tradition of placing a traffic cone on the statue has a famous admirer in Banksy himself<\/a>, who said it was his favourite piece of art in the UK.<\/p>\n

When the artist brought an exhibition to Glasgow in 2023, a sign outside the Gallery of Modern Art declared: “For anyone who isn’t aware – the statue out the front has had a cone on its head continuously for the past 40 odd years. <\/p>\n

“Despite the best efforts of the council and the police, every time one is removed another takes its place.”<\/p>\n

The statue itself dates back to 1844 and was sculpted by Italian artist Carlo Marochetti.<\/p>\n

The traffic cone prank is thought to have been started in the 1980s by revellers and has become a famous Glasgow sight, even being referenced during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rebel Bear The statue appeared on Monday Glasgow’s famous Duke of Wellington statue has taken on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-291293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}