[12] In 1980 Hambling became the first artist in residence at the National Gallery, after which she produced a series of portraits of the comedian Max Wall.

[citation needed] Hambling is a patron of Paintings in Hospitals, a charity that provides art for health and social care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[20] Hambling's 1998 outdoor sculpture at Charing Cross in central London as a memorial to dramatist Oscar Wilde, the first public monument to him outside his native Ireland.

The coffin is intended to serve as a public bench rather than the more conventional stone plinth, hence Hambling's name for the memorial A Conversation with Oscar Wilde, as visitors sit next to the writer's effigy.

[24] The chief art critic of The Independent[25] wrote that ultimately the sculpture was not about Wilde or the viewing public, but a reflection of Hambling herself.

[29] The four-metre-high (13 ft) cast stainless steel sculpture is in the form of the two fractured halves of a scallop shell, etched with the quotation from Britten's opera Peter Grimes: "I hear those voices that will not be drowned."

Hambling describes Scallop as a conversation with the sea: Opponents claimed the sculpture ruined a previously unspoilt stretch of beach.

The Mary on the Green campaign was working to erect a permanent memorial to the philosopher and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman since 2011.

British feminist author Caroline Criado Perez called it "catastrophically wrong" and said, "I honestly feel that actually this representation is insulting to [Wollstonecraft].

I can't see her feeling happy to be represented by this naked, perfectly formed wet dream of a woman.

"[38] The design of the statue was in deliberate opposition to "traditional male heroic statuary" of the Victorian era, the campaigners behind it describing the figure as someone who has "evolved organically from, is supported by, and does not forget, all her predecessors.

The artists' model, Soho muse, and memoirist died in 1999 and Hambling produced a posthumous volume of charcoal portraits of her.

Speaking at a news conference at the House of Commons on 7 February 2007, she said: "I wholeheartedly support the campaign against a ban on smoking in public places.

[44] In August 2014, Hambling was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.