F.E. McWilliamProfile 1940

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Artwork details

Artist
F.E. McWilliam (1909‑1992)
Title
Profile
Date 1940
MediumLignum Vitea
Dimensionsobject: 622 x 178 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition Purchased 1963
Reference
T00599
Not on display

Catalogue entry

T00599 PROFILE 1940

Not inscribed.
Lignum vitae, 24 1/2×7 (62×18), on wooden base, 8×5 1/2×1 1/2 (20×14×4).
Purchased from the artist (Grant-in-Aid) 1963.
Exh: Surrealism Today, Zwemmer Gallery, June–July 1940 (18, dated 1939); Arts Council tour, Sculpture in the Home, 1950–1 (32); Paintings and Sculpture, R.W.A., Bristol, May 1958 (116); Arts Council, British Art and the Modern Movement 1930–40, Cardiff, October–November 1962 (104).

The artist told the compiler (18 June 1963) that he worked on this sculpture for some six months and that it was carved from a single piece of lignum vitae. In a letter (24 June 1963) he stated that this was the last work he made before joining the R.A.F. in 1940. It carried on the series of carvings exhibited at the London Gallery in March 1939 which were known as ‘The Complete Fragment’. ‘These carvings were mostly part or parts of the head, greatly magnified and complete in themselves. They concern the play of solid and void, the solid element being the sculpture itself while the “missing” part inhabits the space around the sculpture’… (read more)

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Category

Sculpture (1,945)

Decade

1940-9 (793)

Subject