EADT "Reader's Choice" winner, The New Angle Prize for Literature
2011
"Scallop is at once a monument to a great musician-composer and a
celebration of the origins of his art... A robust and poetic work of art
(that) stands at the thrilling edge where culture meets nature" - Mel
Gooding
Much has been said and written about Maggi Hambling's Scallop on
Aldeburgh beach. Here is the artist's own story, told as it happened,
with interpolations by some of those who supported (and some who didn't)
her exhilarating and provocative sculpture to Benjamin Britten, one of
Britain's most exalted composers.
Maggi Hambling traces her love of the sea back to earliest childhood
and records how this lifelong passion has fired her work, culminating in
the construction of a 15ft high, six-and-a-half ton stainless steel
sculpture rising out of the shingle on Aldeburgh beach. Children love
it. Lovers love it. Those paying tribute to lost loved ones gather
around it. And there are those who would wish it melted down or carted
away. The artist, and those nearest the action, tell the fascinating
story of its conception, official acceptance and construction, and the
unholy row that erupted after it was finally unveiled.
