30 April 1909 – 13 May 1992

Receiving his early education in Banbridge, McWilliam was later sent to Campbell College, Belfast. He attended Belfast College of Art between 1926 and 1928 before continuing his studies at the Slade School of Art, London. When he started the Slade McWilliam planned to be a painter but under the influence of Professor of Sculpture, A.H. Gerrard, he left committed to sculpture. Upon graduating McWilliam was awarded the Robert Ross leaving scholarship which enabled him and his future wife, the painter Beth Crowther, to travel to Paris. There they visited the studio of the celebrated Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi and were also inspired by the work of Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti.

McWilliam’s early pieces were semi-abstract, but after a visit in 1936 to the International Surrealist Exhibition, London, he had a change of direction. In 1937 he exhibited with the British Surrealist Group and he had his first one-man exhibition of sculptures and drawings at the London Gallery in March 1939. When World War II broke out, McWilliam enlisted in the RAF. He served first in England and then from 1944 – 1946, in India. On his return to England he was invited by his former teacher, A.H. Gerrard, to teach sculpture at the Slade, a post he retained until 1968.

In 1949 McWilliam was elected to the London Group and in the following year he and Beth moved to Holland Park, London, where they entertained many artistic friends including Henry Moore and William Scott. In 1951 he was commissioned to create a large figurative work, The Four Seasons, for the country pavilion at the Festival of Britain. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, many more public commissions followed including Princess Macha (1957) for Altnagelvin Hospital, County Londonderry. McWilliam also undertook a number of more conventional portrait commissions, including a fine bronze of his friend, the painter William Scott (1956).

On 4 March 1972 a bomb exploded at the Abercorn Tea-Rooms in Belfast. Two women were killed, two more lost both legs and a total of 130 people were injured. McWilliam, who had never before used his sculpture for direct comment, was moved by this tragedy to create a series of small bronzes known collectively as Women of Belfast. These suffering figures, tumbled and harried by the bomb blast, have undeniable power and remain universally relevant.

In 1964 McWilliam received an honorary D.Litt from Queen’s University Belfast. He was appointed CBE in 1966, and in 1971 he won a gold medal for sculpture at the Oireachtas Exhibition in Dublin. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1959 but resigned in 1963. He continued to carve until almost the end of his life. McWilliam died of cancer in London, on 13 May 1992.