New public sculptures show London is finally celebrating its daughters

"The statue stands 72cm tall, on a giant, rough-hewn piece of granite, in Coronation Gardens in Wandsworth, and was designed by the British sculptor Gillian Brett. Anyone who has seen the capital's other new public sculpture of a staunch historical defender of women's rights, Mary Wollstonecraft, might understandably baulk at Wilkinson's diminutive size. The sculpture, which was designed by the artist Maggi Hambling in 2020, also features a tiny woman."

"As recently as in 2021, an Art UK Sculpture survey found that of the roughly 1,500 monuments in London, 20.5% were dedicated to named men but only 4% to named women. There were twice as many sculptures of animals than of named women. But in the four years since, there have been more unveilings of statues of women than in the whole of the second half of the 20th century."

London installed a small bronze of Fanny Wilkinson, a pioneering suffragist, public health advocate and the UK's first female professional garden designer. The 72cm statue by Gillian Brett sits on a large rough-hewn granite block in Coronation Gardens, Wandsworth. A similarly diminutive Mary Wollstonecraft by Maggi Hambling was unveiled in 2020, raising questions about scale for tributes to influential women. A 2021 Art UK Sculpture survey recorded roughly 1,500 London monuments, with 20.5% dedicated to named men and only 4% to named women, and twice as many animal sculptures as named women. Recent years have seen more statue unveilings of women than in the latter 20th century.

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