Irena Sedlecká

Sedlecká spent months in Paris alone with the children, staying with very generous friends, while her husband journeyed on alone to Britain to attempt to make entry arrangements for them all.

Her first private commission in Britain, in 1975, was from Kathleen Hunt of Walthamstow, for a 70 cm resin statue of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus (The Madonna).

She sculpted many monumental portraits and busts since, including Freddie Mercury of Queen, now in Montreux, Switzerland; Beau Brummell in Piccadilly, London, and many in private collections.

Commissioned portrait heads include Laurence Olivier (she also modeled the huge head used for his appearance in Dave Clark's musical Time at the Dominion Theatre), Donald Sinden, Paul Eddington, Richard Briers, Jimmy Edwards, Ted Moult, Bobby Charlton, Lord Litchfield and Sir Frank Whittle.

A series of interviews in the following spring led to the publication of a monograph on Sedlecká's life and work together with an unsolicited proposal of bringing the statue, now exiled in Montreux, back to London on temporary loan and to place it on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.