Naked sculpture of UK’s first feminist ‘captures her spirit’

A CONTROVERSIAL statue celebrating the ‘foremother of feminism’ Mary Wollstonecraft has finally been unveiled following a ten-year campaign.

Artist Maggi Hambling created the sculpture which takes pride of place at Newington Green, north London. Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is known as one of the founding feminist philosophers and wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Critics have questioned why she is naked. But Hambling said her statue ‘personifies the spirit, rather than depicts the individual’. She added: ‘Clothes define people. As she’s every woman, I’m not defining her in any particular clothes.’