F.E. McWilliam 1909-1992
Sitting up Figure, 1962
bronze
length 22 inches
stamped with initials, no. 2/5

Provenance
Private Collection, UK

Exhibited
Belfast, Ulster Museum, F.E. McWilliam, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 2 April - 10 May 1981, cat no.54, touring to:
Dublin, Douglas Hyde Gallery, 21 May - 27 June
Cork, Crawford Municipal Gallery, 15 July - 22 August
London, Tate Gallery, F.E. McWilliam - Sculpture 1932-1989, 10 May - 9 July 1989, cat no.41, illus b/w

Literature
Roland Penrose, F. E. McWilliam, Alec Tiranti Ltd, London, 1964, cat no.112 & 113, illus b/w and front cover image



F.E. McWilliam was a lifelong friend of Henry Moore, and this bronze seems to reference Moore’s monumental reclining figures. Influenced by Surrealism, McWilliam began making fragmented sculptures in the 1930s. He was interested in the viewer's tendency to 'complete' the missing parts of the sculpture in the mind's eye. His distorted representations of the human figure seemed to reflect the sense of anxiety and moral crisis that followed the Second World War. Where Moore’s figures were weighty and inert, McWilliam’s bronzes have a mechanomorphic quality, suggesting their potential for movement. These forms allude to both the turning shafts of engines and the bodies of insects.