I was born in the industrial North of England. Drawing and painting were always a major part of my life, but I didn’t discover sculpture until relatively late on and had no formal training. I had not thought portraiture would become the predominant direction of my work, but after several years ‘learning my trade’ at the hands of some extremely good portrait sculptors at Madame Tussauds in London , the pattern seemed to have been set.

 I eventually became a freelance artist and, while developing a deep interest in carving stone, and a side-career teaching sculpture, I was asked to sculpt my first historical portrait with a New York studio. This meant working with limited reference material, as I'd often done at the waxworks, and I found this experience to be extraordinarily helpful.  Comparing photographs, paintings, drawings, and reading everything I could find on the subject.

When I was asked to create a life-size portrait of Benjamin Franklin for the Constitution Centre in Philadelphia , I had thought to use Houdon's famous marble bust as my main reference but, instead, found myself time and again going back to the painting by the French Court painter Joseph Siffred Duplessis. There was so much structure and form apparent in this painting, and most importantly a special sense of the great man’s presence.

This presence has been the illusive ingredient that I've found myself searching for in every portrait I've sculpted. For me, gaining a likeness is only a part of the job. In fact, I prefer to ignore the features and surface and work primarily in a structural manner; from the inside out towards the likeness, developing the forms as I go along. This somehow leaves me free to think about the person’s character.

I’ve sculpted portraits of famous Americans for a number of US Institutions including Thomas Jefferson for Monticello, Abraham Lincoln for the Gettysburg Museum and another for The Lincoln Cottage, Harry S Truman for the Truman Library, George Washington for Mount Vernon, FDR and Eleanor for the Roosevelt Library, Lafayette , Hamilton & Washington for Morristown & Einstein for the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles .

I taught for 3 years at Kensington Chelsea College and created workshops in Hong Kong , USA & S America.

The method I’ve developed, based on traditional techniques, is also central to the instructional DVD set (From the Inside Out) which was published in 2009.

In particular, I’ve been very inspired by the work of the American Portrait sculptor Jo Davidson, and that of Sava Botzaris, who was born in Belgrade , but lived for many years in England . Also, by the work of Oskar Nemon and David McFall.

Stuart Williamson

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