Evie drawing at Summerhill
One of the papier mache heads
The Liverpool Heads
With her husband Anthony Perry, in front of "All the Days of My Life" 1 & 2
Evie with "Whirlpool"
A rare glimpse into Evie's studio
Evelyn Williams
Evelyn Jane Brendan "Evie" Williams (1929–2012), was a British figurative artist. In her obituary in The Guardian it was said that her work, "combined vision, dream and reality", and that she had said her art was "inner thoughts, other worlds".
Evie was born on 21st January 1929 in London. The younger daughter of Brendan Bernard Williams (1904-1986), a journalist and writer, and his wife, Jennie Maude Williams, (née Jones) (1905 – 1983), an opera singer and pianist. She was educated at Summerhill School, (1932-44), as recommended to her father by his friend Bertrand Russell,under the care of A S Neill. She trained at St Martins School, London (1944-47) and then The Royal College of Art (1947-50).
In 1950, she entered a picture of a sick child into an Observer Prize, winning her category and earning a number of commissions. She won the John Moores Prize for Sculpture in 1961. A number of exhibitions followed and her work is now in a number of national collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Arts Council Collection, Sheffield Museums, the collection of the Contemporary Arts Society for Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum of Wales, and in private collections in the United Kingdom, USA and Australia
She died at home in London on 14th November 2012 surrounded by family.
A detailed archive of all Evie’s works can be found by clicking on this link
Drawing was a constant throughout Evelyn Williams's life as an artist but the quest for going beyond 2D began early after initial paintings and led to collage and plaster reliefs and sculptures in wax in the I950s and into the 60s before working in painted reliefs often on a large scale in the 70s and 80s. In the late 80s, she made large scale drawings when moving the reliefs in her studio became practically difficult for her and the later career was marked by a re-embracing of painting in oils on a large and also on an intimate scale.