Arts
Council Collection Artists
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Umbilicus (1977, 1978)
F. E. McWilliam (b.1909, Banbridge, Co. Down, d.1992, London)
Bronze
H: 173 cms
F. E. McWilliam is an artist of international distinction. The son of a doctor, he was educated at Campbell College, Belfast and began his studies at the Belfast School of Art in 1926. In 1928 he went to the Slade School in London where he studied with Henry Tonks and was a contemporary of John Luke. He won a scholarship to Paris and after that lived in London. In 1938 McWilliam exhibited with the British Surrealist Group and held his first one-man-show at the London Gallery in 1939. In 1940 he joined the Royal Air Force and served for 5 years. From 1946-1968 McWilliam taught at the Slade School. Many of his sculptures were commissioned for public places, for example, a large work for the Festival of Britain Exhibition (1951) at the South Bank Centre, London and Princess Macha for the Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry (1957). In 1981 the Arts Councils in Ireland organised an exhibition of his work which toured throughout Ireland and in 1989 the Tate Gallery, London held a major retrospective of his work. McWilliam’s varied body of work is characterised by a love of the visual and verbal joke although his ‘Women of Belfast’ series depicting women caught in a bomb blast demonstrates his engagement with life in Belfast during the 70s.
