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composition and plaster over steel armature with colour

PROVENANCE

The Artist;
Artcurial, Paris, where purchased by the present owner circa 1984

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Roland Penrose, McWilliam, London 1964, no.32 (bronze illustrated);
Warwick Arts Trust, F.E.McWilliam, Early Sculptures 1935-48 with some recent works, exh.cat., Warwick Arts Trust, London, 3 June - 30 June 1982, no.17 (bronze illustrated);
Mel Gooding, F.E.McWilliam, Sculpture 1932-1989, exh.cat., The Tate Gallery, London, 10 May - 9 July 1989, no.37 (bronze illustrated)
CATALOGUE NOTE

Conceived in 1953, the present work is the composition maquette from which an edition of three bronzes were cast, one of which is in the collection of the Altnagelvin Hospital, Londonderry.
After the Second World War, McWilliam began to experiment with new techniques and Eve is one of his most successful large scale sculptures from the period to be constructed using an internal wire armature to provide support to the overall figure. As the biblical mother of humanity, her tall stature is subtly juxtaposed with the swollen lump of her belly indicative of fertility and of new life to come. The verticality of the statue provides an interesting contrast to his earlier Mother and Child of 1938 where the focus is resolutely horizontal. The elongated nature of Eve's face and hair possibly relate to Hindu and Buddhist forms the artist would have witnessed in India during his war service there with the RAF.