Five of a Kind: Coventry’s Reconciliation Sculpture

In the grounds of Coventry Cathedral stands a modest brass sculpture: a man and a woman, kneeling and embracing. With your gaze naturally drawn upwards to appreciate the scale of the Cathedral’s destruction, you might miss the two figures entirely. But when I visited in 2024 they immediately caught my eye – I’d seen them once before, in another country entirely. Coventry’s Reconciliation is part of a much broader, international history than you might expect.

Reconciliation was created by English sculptor Josefina de Vasconcellos (1904-2005) in 1955. Initially, she credited her inspiration to a story of a woman who had walked across Europe to find her husband after the Second World War (WWII). Hence the exhaustion of the figures as they embrace. But after completing her work, she realised its broader meaning: the figures represented not just two individuals reunited, but also the reconciliation of nations after years of devastating war.

The sculpture remained in limbo, unsold in the gallery, for the next 17 years. In 1977, it was donated to the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. The University cast the sculpture in bronze and proposed renaming it from Reunion to Reconciliation – to emphasise its wider meaning. It was unveiled by the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Séan MacBride, as an enduring and powerful symbol of peace.

Fifty years after the end of WWII, two new Reconciliation casts were commissioned. One was unveiled in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, the other in Peace Park in Hiroshima, Japan. Two cities, chosen for their shared – though very different – experiences of destruction, and their commitment to rebuild and to reconcile after the horrors of war.

Since then, two further copies have been installed. In 1999, a fourth was placed at the Church of Reconciliation in Berlin, to mark the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And in 2000, a fifth was placed in the grounds of Stormont Parliament Buildings in Belfast, symbolising the nation’s commitment to the Good Friday Agreement and the ongoing peace process. All five sculptures can still be visited today.

I first came across Reconciliation in Berlin in 2023 – and the sculpture struck me as deeply then as it did in Coventry a year later. In Berlin, the two figures meet over barbed wire, symbolising the wall that divided East from West for 28 years. They are far enough apart that they must bend almost double to reach one another. Their faces are obscured as they embrace – they could represent any community or nation torn apart by conflict.

Theologian Oliver Schuegraf writes the following in his book The Cross of Nails:‘A bridge of reconciliation has been built. The embracing arms hint at a strong and enduring link. Yet the gulf is not fully bridged... the knees of the couple are still widely separated... However, the embrace gives a strong foretaste of that which is to come, and of how one day it might be.’

It’s a beautiful sculpture, and a powerful idea – if perhaps slightly bittersweet in an age of renewed global tension. But the next time you look up at the ruined spires of Coventry Cathedral, don’t forget to look down, too. Reconciliation reminds us of our shared commitment, and our capacity, for peace. And perhaps someone is doing the same in Berlin, Belfast, Hiroshima, and Bradford. A global symbol of reconciliation – right on our doorstep.

Bibliography:

Maddocks, Paul, Reconciliation Sculpture (2023), Coventry City of Peace and Reconciliation https://coventrycityofpeace.uk/reconciliation-sculpture [accessed 28 July 2025]

‘Reconciliation Sculpture’ (2020), Coventry Peace Trail [accessed 28 July 2025]

Schuegraf, Oliver, The Cross of Nails (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2012), cited in ‘Reconciliation Sculpture’ (2020), Coventry Peace Trail [accessed 28 July 2025]