Statue of George Orwell
A Statue of George Orwell sculpted by the British sculptor Martin Jennings will be unveiled in December 2016 outside Broadcasting House, the headquarters of the BBC.[1]
The wall behind the statue is inscribed with the words "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear".[1] The head of BBC history, Robert Seatter, said of Orwell and the statue that "He reputedly based his notorious Room 101 from Nineteen Eighty-Four on a room he had worked in whilst at the BBC, but here he will stand in the fresh air reminding people of the value of journalism in holding authority to account".[1]
The statue was funded by a trust established by the Labour MP Ben Whitaker; with all funds coming from private donors. Notable donors to the trust included Orwell's son, Richard Blair, the broadcasters John Humphrys, James Naughtie and Melvyn Bragg, comedian Rowan Atkinson, and the playwrights Tom Stoppard, David Hare and Michael Frayn. In 2012 the BBC rejected the offer of the statue, reportedly due to the provocative nature of the memorial. The project was revived under the Director General of the BBC Tony Hall. Whitaker died in 2014 and the project was continued by his wife, Janet Whitaker, Baroness Whitaker.[1]
Jennings was chosen the sculptor due to Whitaker's admiration of Jennings's sculpture of John Betjeman at St. Pancras station. Jennings said that Orwell was "...an ideal subject for a sculptor: loomingly tall, skinny as a rake, forever fag in hand, body leaning in to make a point. He wore the kind of clothes that might have spent their off-duty hours hanging from a nail in the potting shed".[1]
