Further to your article (Pankhurst paintings of women at work acquired for Tate, 21 December), Sylvia’s son Richard, in his book Sylvia Pankhurst, Artist and Crusader, quotes her response to her paintings: “Mothers came to me with their wasted little ones. I saw starvation look at me from patient eyes. I knew then that I should never return to my art.”
Her life became dedicated to fighting for fairness for all. Her organisation alone, The East London Federation of Suffragettes, continued to campaign until working-class women finally won the vote in 1928. In this centenary year of women’s statues we want to also recognise Sylvia, the socialist Pankhurst too often forgotten because of her radical politics. Follow us @sylviastatue
Philippa Clark
Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee
• Might I point out that Sylvia Pankhurst: From Artist to Anti-Fascist, which I edited together with the late Richard Pankhurst, includes both Hilary Cunliffe-Charlesworth’s account of “Sylvia Pankhurst as an Art Student” and Jackie Duckworth’s “Sylvia Pankhurst as an Artist” as well as other contributions on her later suffrage, socialist, Ethiopian and other anti-fascist campaigns? It also includes eight illustrations of her artwork, albeit black and white ones, including one of the pictures of working women bought by the Tate featured in your article.
Ian Bullock
Brighton
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