By Andrew Brown Stand Up For Southport
A Southport shop has the coolest street art in town thanks to acclaimed local artist Paul Curtis.
Hollywood legend Steve McQueen, known as ‘The King Of Cool’, peers over his sunglasses from the shutters outside David H Myers Opticians on London Street in Southport town centre.
Once the highest paid movie star in the world, Steve McQueen starred in films including The Sand Pebbles, The Cincinnati Kid , Nevada Smith, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway, Papillon, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and The Towering Inferno.
His image has added to another Hollywood idol, Paul Curtis’ artwork of Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
Paul said: “It’s great to welcome another Hollywood legend to Southport!
“This artwork has taken me two and a half days to create.
“Audrey Hepburn had been in place since 2019, and the owners at David H Myers Opticians asked me to come and create a new piece.
“They wanted me to paint Steve McQueen this time.
“I’m really pleased with the results.
“It’s good to see a female acting legend joined by a male acting legend, the yin and yang of Hollywood.
been added to the front of David H Myers Opticians in Southport by street artist Paul Curtis, adding to Audrey Hepburn
“Both of them have been pictured peering over their sunglasses, so it really tied in with the brief of creating something special to perfectly represent this optician’s.
“I created the Audrey Hepburn artwork five years ago, in 2019, so it was good to come back.
“Steve McQueen was a fantastic actor. He was from that really golden age of Hollywood.
“I love the idea of brightening town centres and city centres with street art. If you add the human element and have people like Audrey Hepburn or Steve McQueen looking out from the shutters, then it really catches your eye. That is what really works.”
been added to the front of David H Myers Opticians in Southport by street artist Paul Curtis. Photo by Andrew Brown Stand Up For Southport
In April this year Paul Curtis transformed the underpass underneath Birkdale Train Station in Southport with images of the Red Rum racehorse and shrimping carts as part of a collaboration between Birkdale Civic Society and Merseyrail.
In 2021 he created the iconic sand lizard artwork across the Toad Hall building in Ainsdale – the biggest mural in Britain outside London.
It followed his four storey painting of the world’s greatest ever racehorse, Red Rum, in 2020. The giant 15m four-storey high mural on the gable end of a row of buildings on the corner of Scarisbrick Avenue and the Promenade was one of the highlights of the Sefton Borough of Culture. Both works were commissioned by Sefton Council.
Perhaps his most famous work is ‘For All Liverpool’s Liver Birds’, (aka ‘The Wings’), which he painted on Jamaica Street in the Baltic Triangle in Liverpool city centre in 2017.
It was a huge success with queues of people eager to have the picture taken with the wings, becoming Liver Birds themselves.
been added to the front of David H Myers Opticians in Southport by street artist Paul Curtis
David H Myers Opticians has spent the past 45 years of providing top quality eye care for generations of families across the north of England.
The independent, family-run firm was founded by David Myers in Churchtown Village in 1979.
Following the success of Churchtown, a second practice on Lord Street in Southport town centre was opened in 1980 and is now the heart and hub of David H Myers Opticians.
Lytham opened in 1992, shortly followed by Leeds in 1997, Penwortham in 2002 and Cleveleys in 2022.
All six practices are individual and have carefully chosen teams of fully qualified professional staff, most of which have been with David H Myers for at least 10 years or more.
Visit: davidhmyers.com
Do you have a story for Stand Up For Southport? Please message Andrew Brown via Facebook here or email me at: mediaandrewbrownn@gmail.com
