Mural: Hitchcock mosaics 04 - North by Northwest, 1959
Erection date: 3/5/2001
North by Northwest, 1959
Hitchcock’s supreme chase comedy-thriller in which Cary Grant, as urbane businessman Roger Thornhill, is mistaken for a spy and is pursued across the country by both enemy agents and the police. In this famous scene his life is threatened by, of all things, a crop-dusting aeroplane.
“It is only when you adopt the basic premise that Cary Grant could not possibly come to harm that the tongue in Hitchcock’s cheek becomes plainly visible.” – Hollis Alpert, Saturday Review.
6 artists/craftspeople and 5 organisations are named as creating this Gallery of 17 murals. Rather than repeat this information on all 17 pages we have put it on the first mural only, The Birds.
Site: Hitchcock mosaics (17 memorials)
E11, Church Lane, Leytonstone tube station
These 17 mosaic murals deck the entrance and tunnel to Leytonstone tube station, between the bus station and Church Lane, all being street side of the ticket barrier. They were installed to commemorate the centenary of Alfred Hitchcock’s birth. We like some more than others, as one would expect, but they are exemplars of what good mosaic murals can be. They are not just copies of well-known stills or scenes from the movies, but are new designs which capture the star or the feel of the film very well. We particularly like Psycho and To Catch a Thief. Worth a visit.
5 artists are named and it seems unlikely that they all worked on all the murals but we can find no further information.
Instead of a photo of the outside of the station we’ve decided to include this photo of two salvaged vintage advertisements, also on the tunnel wall.
Strange coincidence - 17 mosaics, one of them for a film titled Number 17. There are two information boards, slightly different - due to the 'left/right' specification - and on one of them Number 17 has been omitted.
Information board:
The Hitchcock Gallery, opened May 3rd 2001.
This gallery celebrates the life and work of the great film-maker Alfred Hitchcock, born in Leytonstone on 13th August 1899.
Right side: Young Alfred by his father's shop, Number 17, Hitchcock the director, Suspicion, Psycho, The Skin Game, North by Northwest.
Left side: Pleasure Garden, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Saboteur - with the Elms, The Birds, To Catch a Thief.
At the entrance: Rebecca - with St John’s Church, The Wrong Man, Rear Window – with the Green Man, Hitchcock with Dietrich.
These pictures were chosen by local people. The project was organised by the London Borough of Waltham Forest and supported by generous donations from Capital Challenge Funds, London Underground and Tesco. Captions by John Barry.
The Mosaics were designed and made by artists Steve and Nathan Lobb, Carol Kenna, Claire Notley and Julie Norburn at Greenwich Mural Workshop, Macbean Centre in Woolwich, SE18.
