Turner Prize winner Sir Antony Gormley has endorsed the Independent and Evening Standard’s campaign to alleviate food poverty by donating a £400,000 sculpture to the fundraising drive.

“It can’t be right that people go hungry in the capital city of such a rich country as the UK,” the artist told the campaign.

Sir Antony donated an artwork, titled Attend, which sold to a private buyer for £400,000. 

The papers’ campaign, which is in its final days, has so far raised £9m for charity partner The Felix Project to provide 15 million meals to those experiencing food poverty during the Covid-19 crisis.

ESI Media’s joint campaign has seen the Independent through its Help the Hungry drive and the Evening Standard’s Food For London Now garner support from celebrities including The Crown actor Olivia Colman, Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge and comedian Jack Whitehall.

Artists and creatives have contributed a total of £2m to the fundraising efforts, applying their creativity to help those hit hardest by the pandemic.

Initiatives have included a Sotheby’s art auction with work by Ai Weiwei and Tracy Emin sold to raise funds for London’s largest food surplus distribution charity.

Other artists supporting the campaign include Damien Hirst, the acclaimed British contemporary artist, who in May donated a design of a rainbow heart which sold nearly 5,000 editions and raised £1.5m for the cause.

Earlier this year Evening Standard editor-in-chief George Osborne told the Society of Editors of the campaign’s aspiration to raise £10m for the project.

He said, “We have committed to raise £10M to ensure The Felix Project has the resources to help vulnerable Londoners over the next three years. We are proud, as a newspaper, to be highlighting this critical issue and to be playing our part.”