Maggi Hambling’s statue for Mary Wollstonecraft and womanhood at Newington Green.
Photo: ©ioana Marinescu Detail

• COUNCILLOR Richard Cotton like many others has been misled by the media frenzy over the so-called Mary Wollstonecraft statue at Newington Green, (Why not a new statue for Wollstonecraft in Camden?, November 19).

I agree she deserves a statue in Camden if a suitable site could be found; but the present one is not supposed to be her, naked or otherwise, as sculptor Maggi Hambling has explained.

It is a tribute both to her and to women in general, the naked figure representing womanhood as a whole, rising from the emerging bodies of other women. It is both a tribute to commemorate Wollstonecraft and to womanhood in general.

There is no objectification and there are plenty of other nude statues of women in galleries and elsewhere so this is no exception.

JOHN STRATTON,
NW3