Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Downing Street

Diminutive in scale, Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere by Gillian Wearing, is a bronze maquette (small working model) for a larger sculpture of the suffragist and feminist leader, Millicent Fawcett, that was commissioned in 2017 for Parliament Square. In Fawcett’s hands is a banner with the words ‘Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere’ referencing words she wrote in 1913 after the death of Emily Wilding Davison, the British Suffragette who fought for equal voting rights for women. In 2018, Wearing commented on the subject of her sculpture:

I wanted her to hold a banner with the words ‘courage calls to courage everywhere’ – a fabulous and generous rallying cry and one she wrote in respect of Emily Wilding Davison who was killed by the King’s horse at Epsom Derby. Fawcett admired the Suffragettes but did not believe in civil disobedience. In this quote she both acknowledges the ultimate sacrifice of Davison as well encouraging us to think of the selfless acts of others.

[The Art Newspaper, 24 April 2018]

Unveiled on 24 April 2018, Wearing’s sculpture was the first public monument of a woman, and the first created by a woman, in Parliament Square. Wearing was commissioned in 2017 by the Mayor of London with 14-18 NOW, Firstsite and Iniva, to create a new work that commemorated the Centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918. This historic legislative Act of Parliament included voting rights for some women over the age of 30.

Born in Birmingham in 1963, Gillian Wearing studied at Chelsea School of Art and Design before attending Goldsmiths College where she was associated with the ‘Young British Artists’ or ‘YBA’ generation. Since then, Wearing has gained international recognition, winning the Turner Prize in 1997. A major retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2012 later toured to Düsseldorf and Munich in 2013. In 2017, the National Portrait Gallery held the exhibition ‘Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask’ that explored shared issues of identity and gender. Wearing’s sculpture of Millicent Fawcett was unveiled in Parliament Square, London, in 2018 to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act of 1918.

People

Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847 - 1929)

Places

Subjects

writer, hair, woman, dress, dress coat, shoe, educationalist, feminism, activism, suffragist, campaigner, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, Women's suffrage movement, UK

Materials & Techniques

maquette, sculpture (as object name), mixed media sculpture

Artist

Gillian Wearing (1963 - )

Title

Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere

Edition

One of an edition of 6, plus 3 artist's proofs

Date

2018

Medium

polyurethane resin and acrylic paint on granite base with styrene and waterslide decals

Dimensions

height: 47 cm, width: 15 cm, depth: 14 cm

Acquisition

Gift of maquette for sculpture by Gillian Wearing from Maureen Paley / artist. Sculpture commissioned by the Mayor of London with 14-18 NOW, Firstsite and Iniva to commemorate the Centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, through the Government’s national centenary fund.

GAC number

18794