Letters | 24 January 2013

Moore for less

Sir: Niru Ratnam (Arts, 19 January) is wrong on a number of counts and omits much else. The sale of Henry Moore’s ‘Draped Seated Woman’ would be most unlikely to raise the £20 million he claims; £5 million is thought to be much nearer the market value — 0.3 per cent of Tower Hamlets’ annual expenditure of £1.53 billion, and scarcely likely to relieve the current financial pressure on its council.

Moreover he neglects to mention that the Museum of London has offered to house and maintain the work on its Docklands site, giving it the public profile in London, and impact on daily lives, that Moore himself so desired.

This matters today as much as it ever did. The best public art inspires communities and nurtures souls, offering hope, integrity and beauty — standing proudly amid the cares and chaos of the world around. Old Flo should be allowed to do that job again for the people of east London, if only to offer a sound moral alternative to the shoddiness of local political philistinism.