John Lennon Bust in the Aleja Sław, Kielce

The John Lennon bust in Kielce is a bronze portrait by local sculptor Tomasz Łukaszczyk in the Aleja Sław, a row of busts of 20th-century artists on Skwer Szarych Szeregów beside the Municipal Park. The city and the Union of Polish Sculptors picked the design in a competition decided in late 2010.

One face in a gallery of more than 50

Kielce's Aleja Sław, the Avenue of Fame, lines the main path of Skwer Harcerski im. Szarych Szeregów, next to the Municipal Park along the Silnica river. The city lists more than 50 bronze busts there, all on matching granite pedestals: composers such as Paderewski and Gershwin, writers such as Kafka and Joyce, painters such as Picasso and Dalí, and musicians from Jimi Hendrix to Kielce's Marek Grechuta.

Chosen by competition

Kielce does not simply order its busts. For each new figure the city runs a competition with the Union of Polish Sculptors, open to sculptors from Kielce and the region, a scheme meant partly to support local sculptors. In October 2010, when Leszek Kołakowski became the 46th bust, a jury was about to pick designs for two more: John Lennon and the painter and writer Józef Czapski.

Tomasz Łukaszczyk won the Lennon commission. He has said that a face everyone knows is harder to get right than an unfamiliar one. No unveiling date appears in the city's listings. A photograph on Wikimedia Commons shows the bust in place on 27 June 2011.

Birthday songs at the pedestal

The bust has become a meeting point for local fans. On 10 October 2015, Lennon's 75th birthday, a handful of Kielce musicians brought guitars and sang a Polish version of Imagine in front of it. Each pedestal in the alley names the person, their profession and the sculptor, so the plate confirms whose work you are looking at.

For another bronze Lennon portrait in central Europe see the bust in Sopron or the Vilnius monument.