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About the Artist

I was born in North East Yorkshire in 1948 and had a wonderful childhood. I was always encouraged to be creative by my Parents.

I always loved to draw and paint but I came to sculpture relatively late. When I finally discovered it, I became thoroughly obsessed. I read everything in sight on the subject and traveled all over Europe to study the work of the Masters.

I quickly realized that to understand 3-dimensionality enough to be able to work with it, there were no short cuts and no point in relying on ‘the happy accident’.

I studied human anatomy and started to work in a very structured way. This has become the centre of my courses and demonstrations.

In order to work successfully as a freelance sculptor in my particular field of portraiture I realized that I needed to absorb as much knowledge as I could by studying the work of sculptors past & present and try to develop personal techniques based on the classical methods to avoid back-tracking and overworking.

I spent many years at Madame Tussauds, the famous wax museum, first as a mould-maker and later as a sculptor and became Senior Sculptor at their Baker St. studio, London. I produced many waxwork figures and had sittings with numerous famous celebrities, including, Pavarotti, Shirley Maclaine, Little Richard, Michael Caine, Professor Stephen Hawkings, Morgan Freeman & Bette Midler.

I always enjoyed the historical figures and sculpting them with limited information such as paintings, old photographs and written reference. This was useful training for the work I am now most often asked to do.

I’ve had a long relationship with a Brooklyn studio. Ivan, Elliot and Debra Schwartz of StudioEIS are most excellent people and with them I’ve sculpted portraits for a number of major US institutions.

These include several portraits for The Constitution Centre, Philadelphia, among them Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, also Harry S Truman for the Truman Library, Independence, Missouri, FDR & Eleanor for the Roosevelt Foundation, Einstein for the Griffith Observatory, California and recently several portraits of George Washington for Mount Vernon.

When I originally became freelance I hadn’t thought to spend so much time working in the area of realistic portraiture, imagining myself continuing to explore my own ideas and concepts and in a variety of materials.

Studio assistants Raphael & Leonardo

However, there is much to be said for earning your living at the thing you hold dearest, and now much of my creative pleasure comes from passing on to others through my courses and demonstrations all that was so kindly imparted to me in the past..

With special thanks to Ian Hanson, Karen Newman, Jim Mathieson, Norman Pierce & Stan Mitchell all excellent sculptors, for sharing with me their time, their excellent knowledge and wonderful techniques.

Stuart Williamson

Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors
Member of the Society of Portrait Sculptors (UK)
& Member of the National Sculpture Society (USA)

 

    Email: stuart@portraitsculpture-online.com or sculpture@williamson-vasconez.com

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