MCWILLIAM, F.E.

born April 30, 1909, Banbridge, County Down, N.Ire. died May 13, 1992, London, Eng. in full Frederick Edward Mcwilliam Irish sculptor who worked in wood, stone, and bronze to create surreal, abstract, and semiabstract sculptures. In his best-known pieces he placed human figures or body parts in juxtaposition to achieve a dramatic or whimsical effect. McWilliam studied at the Belfast College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in London (192831) before moving to Paris. He soon returned to England, where he began carving in the local Buckinghamshire cherry wood. After serving in the Royal Air Force in India during World War II, he taught drawing and sculpture in Bengal (194446), at the Chelsea School of Art (194647), and at the Slade (194766). His work was seldom overtly political, but in 197273 he made a series of powerful bronzes, Women of Belfast, in response to the bombing of the Abercorn Tea Rooms in Belfast. He was elected to the Royal Academy (1959) and made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1966). McWilliam was the subject of a retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London in 1989.