A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft facts for kids
Quick facts for kids A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft |
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|---|---|
| Artist | Maggi Hambling |
| Medium | Bronze, granite |
| Subject | Mary Wollstonecraft |
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
| 51°33′06″N 0°05′06″W / 51.55153°N 0.08511°W | |
A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft is a public sculpture commemorating the 18th-century feminist writer and advocate Mary Wollstonecraft in Newington Green, London. A work of the British artist Maggi Hambling, it was unveiled on 10 November 2020.
Description
The work is a representation of a naked female figure, emerging out of organic matter which the BBC described as "a swirling mingle of female forms". Wollstonecraft's most famous quotation, "I do not wish women to have power over men but over themselves", is inscribed on the plinth. The sculpture is inspired by Wollstonecraft's claim to be "the first of a new genus".
The sculpture is sited opposite the Newington Green Unitarian Church that Wollstonecraft attended.
Campaign for the sculpture
The "Mary on the Green" group was founded in 2010 to campaign and raise money for a statue of Wollstonecraft on Newington Green. The group reached its target of £143,300 in 2019. The campaign was chaired by Bee Rowlatt who is a writer and journalist. Rowlatt is also the founding trustee of the Wollstonecraft Society, a human rights education charity. Hambling was commissioned to create the work in 2018.
Hambling's design for the sculpture was selected unanimously by a panel of curators and the public, and chosen over the design of artist Martin Jennings.
