Some love it, others loathe it. The Mary Wollstonecraft sculpture in north London has split opinion. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Mary Wollstonecraft statue becomes one of 2020's most polarising artworks

Maggi Hambling’s north London sculpture aimed to provoke debate – and a survey of passersby shows it has certainly done that

Mark Brown
Friday 25 December 2020

“It’s marvellous, I think it is unbelievably beautiful,” said Hilary Everett, a retired social worker, as she walked past one of the most controversial, most debated and most polarising public artworks of 2020.

But Michaela Crimmin, a reader in art passing by a few minutes later, disagreed: “I loathe it. There’s no aesthetic to it. This is one of the very few public outdoor spaces in our area and to put this there is very brazen. I object to the material, I object to the shape of it and I think the actual sculpture looks ridiculous on that plinth.”

‘A subject speaks through me. I’m not in control’ … Maggi Hambling at her new show. 
Photograph: Graeme Robertson

Interview

'There are plenty of schlongs in art' – Maggi Hambling defends her nude sculpture of Mary Wollstonecraft

Her tribute to the feminist icon caused outrage at last month’s unveiling, but the artist has no regrets. She hits back at her critics – and explains why this women’s rights pioneer had to be naked

Stuart Jeffries

Wed 16 Dec 2020

Maggi Hambling is listing her favourite sculpted penises. “The Elgin marbles,” she says. “Michelangelo’s David. And Shelley’s, though it is rather small.” She means the Shelley memorial, Edward Onslow Ford’s attempt to depict the sea-shrunken corpse of the drowned poet. She takes a drag on her cigarette, exhales and giggles.

We’re sitting on the pavement outside the Marlborough Gallery in Mayfair so Hambling can have a cigarette. It’s stupidly cold but this is the only place we can do the interview, unless the artist quits. And that’s not going to happen. She is an incorrigible smoker, refusing to be photographed without a cigarette in hand. Until recently, the gallery made an exception, allowing Hambling to light up inside. “But the people in the offices above objected to the smell,” she says. “They threatened to close down my show.” So she has evicted herself from her own exhibition for the length of four cigarettes and a coffee.