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Mandela statue provokes another battle of Trafalgar
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
(Filed: 28/09/2005) Less than a fortnight after a statue of a pregnant naked woman with no arms went up in Trafalgar Square, the battle to commemorate another Nelson - Nelson Mandela - close by went into overdrive yesterday as two of the country's top sculptors clashed at a public inquiry. Glynn Williams, professor of sculpture at the Royal College of Art, denounced the £400,000 statue of Mr Mandela by Ian Walters as "run-of-the mill mediocre modelling" that did not measure up as a good work of art.
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Ian Walters at work on his 9ft-tall bronze of Nelson Mandela
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Adding salt to the wound, Prof Williams said: "A sculptor of more originality and inventiveness should have been chosen." The two men, who previously went head to head in a public competition to produce a statue of Harold Wilson in Huddersfield, which Mr Walters won, are appearing at a three-day public inquiry that opened yesterday into the exact siting of the statue of the former president of South Africa in the square. Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, wants the 9ft-tall bronze to be placed on the square's north terrace, outside the main entrance to the National Gallery. Westminster council refused permission. Although it has said that the square is a suitable venue for a bronze Mandela, it says that the north terrace is too prominent a position and that the statue should be placed outside the main piazza in front of South Africa House. The council, which is backed by English Heritage and the National Gallery, is angry that Mr Livingstone will not accept the compromise and that he has set aside £100,000 from his budget for legal fees to fight an expensive planning appeal. Prof Williams, an expert witness for Westminster who is working on a statue of Lloyd George for Parliament Square, denounced Mr Walters's statue, which sits in his studio 85 per cent complete. He said the Mandela bronze was "an adequate portrait but nothing more". "In all portraiture the element that is most often overlooked is the quality of the art rather than the likeness of the subject," said Prof Williams. "An important public memorial needs a stronger sculptural sense rather than a mere mimetic rendering. The work must be timeless if we are to take it seriously. It must be an important piece of art in its own right." Prof Williams described Mr Walters's effort as "a mere husk, an empty shell" because it had "no life coming from the inner expression of the subject". He expressed anger that a charitable fund chaired by the film director Lord Attenborough, which raised the money for the statue, did not hold an open competition. Mr Walters, who is the sculptor of another statue of Mr Mandela erected outside the Royal Festival Hall in 1985, said he had no personal animus against Prof Williams but dismissed his views because he had seen only a 2ft-high maquette of the statue. He said: "I dispute them [his views] because they accept only one kind of art, an art which denies expressive reality. "He calls my statue fussy and too full of detail but I want one that people will associate with Mandela. I do not want one that is an invention for the sake of art." Lord Attenborough, a close friend of Mr Mandela, said it was "dismissive and insulting" to site the statue by South Africa House because it would be on a crowded pavement where visitors could not stand back and view it. Paul Drury, an English Heritage consultant, told the inquiry: "There can be no dispute that the subject of the statue is a world leader of immense stature. "But placing an informal, small-scale statue of him among formal statues primarily commemorating naval and military leaders... would be a major and awkward change in the narrative of the square." |
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