- Artist
- F.E. McWilliam 1909–1992
- Medium
- Aluminium on wooden base
- Dimensions
- Overall: 507 × 435 × 170 mm. Wooden base alone: 55 × 430 × 158 mm.
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1953
- Reference
- N06164
Catalogue entry
N06164 CAIN AND ABEL 1952
Not inscribed.
Aluminium, 18 1/8×8×15 3/8 (46×20·5×39).
Purchased from the International Sculpture Competition (Grant-in-Aid) 1953.
Exh: International Sculpture Competition: The Unknown Political Prisoner, New Burlington Galleries, January 1953 (11), and Tate Gallery, March–May 1953 (19).
Repr:
Studio, CXLVIII, 1954, p.144.
The artist exhibited five drawings and five versions (two in metal and wire, one in metal and two in wood) of the group ‘Cain and Abel’ at the Hanover Gallery in October–November 1952 (12–16). The present version was made later in 1952 as a maquette for the Unknown Political Prisoner Competition, where it won an Arts Council National Prize of £25. The artist wrote (22 May 1953): ‘I took this as a symbol of man's eternal persecution of man, of which the political prisoner is but the contemporary symptom.... It is in a form of aluminium made direct not cast’.
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II
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