A crowdfunder to create a new statue of Mary Wollstonecraft was launched just days after her monument was unveiled on Newington Green.
The campaign is funding artist Martin Jennings’ vision for the monument, which came second to Maggi Hambling’s winning proposal, and needs to raise £154,000.
Hambling’s 10ft silvered bronze-cast piece, A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft, depicts female forms twisting together as one silver mass to hold up a figure of an unidentified, nude “everywoman”.
However, the £143,000 design has drawn criticism from high profile commentators such as journalist Caitlin Moran.
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Martin told this paper: “There’s still room for a representational statue of Mary Wollstonecraft.
“Many women have contacted me saying they like the idea of sitting down on the bench with their daughters and teaching them about Mary.
“I would love to make it anywhere between Spitalfields where she was born and Hackney and Camden where she lived and worked.”
The fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors has created notable statues around the UK, including British-Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole in Lambeth, and Women of Steel commemorating women of Sheffield’s steel industry during World War One and World War Two.
View the crowdfunder at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/statue-for-mary-wollstonecraft
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