Thatcher statue made famous after being beheaded now tucked away in the ‘perfect setting’
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Version 0 of 1. Some things, you might assume, are easy to find. A once-decapitated 8ft-tall two-ton marble statue of Lady Thatcher, for example. Prepare to be disappointed. Visitors returning to the Guildhall Gallery, in the heart of London’s Square Mile financial district, following a six-month refurbishment will discover that the Mrs T exhibit installed in 2002 is now conspicuous by its absence. The £150,000 statue became famous after a protester beheaded it with a metal rope support stanchion. It returned to the gallery after £10,000 of work to replace its head. Until now. The lady has vanished. “She’s been moved,” a security guard said. “To another part of the building. Any viewing has to be by prior arrangement.” Could it really be, as The Art Newspaper was suggesting, that the statue of Baroness Thatcher, once the colossus of British politics, had been shuffled off into an obscure “ambulatory” in the Guildhall complex, the City of London Corporation’s HQ? Yesterday The Independent sought to solve the mystery of the marble statue of the Iron Lady, originally commissioned for Parliament from the sculptor Neil Simmons by the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art. At least some visitors to the Guildhall were enquiring about the statue’s absence: about 30 since the art gallery reopened on 15 January, the security guard said. “But when we say it’s been moved, they don’t bother asking to where.” We were led from the gallery, to the Guildhall Complex’s north wing, then its east wing, then to a corridor and finally we were face-to-face with the statue. A bronze bust of Lady Thatcher was unveiled this month in the capital of the Falkland Islands, Port Stanley It was an admirably well-lit corridor – so well lit that we could see a faint line where its head had been severed by Paul Kelleher in July 2002 – an act for which he was jailed for three months. The statue was under constant CCTV surveillance. The spokesman explained that the Guildhall complex is not just the art gallery but “a vast dynamic, public space” and all sorts of visitors – business people, conference attendees – might find themselves wandering past. But there is always a chance the corridor may be closed for some reason, which is why Maggie fans are advised to view by prior arrangement. In the 30 minutes that we spent admiring the statue, only one other person walked along the corridor. “This is not some shuffling off into a corner,” the spokesman said. “She is next to our Restoration coat of arms. How much more prestigious could you get? “We had to move her during the refurbishment to get at electric wiring in the wall, so we put her here. We realised what a great spot it was. In the gallery, the paintings distracted from the statue. Here the light and the stonework gives the statue its perfect setting.” |