Maggi Hambling chosen to create statue celebrating feminist thinker Mary Wollstonecraft

Winning artist Maggi Hambling
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Artist Maggi Hambling has been selected to create a public sculpture that will celebrate Mary Wollstonecraft.

The Mary on the Green campaign has been working since 2011 to secure a permanent tribute to Wollstonecraft, who was a leading feminist writer and thinker. Her groundbreaking 1792 book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is considered one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy.

Since the campaign began, over 4,000 people have signed a petition and it has garnered support from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Hambling was shortlisted alongside sculptor Martin Jennings to create the statue, which is proposed to be placed in Newington Green.

Maggi Hambling's winning design

Her design was selected after a “unanimous” decision by the judges, who described it as “a radical proposal embodying radical ideas”.

The statue will show the figure of a woman emerging from organic matter, and it will feature Wollstonecraft’s words, “I do not wish women to have power over men but over themselves.”

Bee Rowlatt, chair of the Mary on the Green campaign, said: “This is mould-breaking work of art will provoke debate, which is what public art should do, and which is what Wollstonecraft did her whole life.”

Hambling said she was “excited” by the chance to commemorate “trailblazer” Wollstonecraft. “I hope the piece will act as a metaphor for the challenges women continue to face as we confront the world,” she said.

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A statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett created by Gillian Wearing was recently unveiled in Parliament Square. It was the result of a campaign to bring more public statues of women to London.

Find out more about Mary on the Green at maryonthegreen.org

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