Eric Winters Sold at Auction Prices

ERIC WINTERS (1921-1968)

ERIC WINTERS (1921-1968) Michelle Winters aged six weeks  signed 'Winters' (on the back of the neck) bronze with green patina 6 3/4 in. , high, including the base  Conceived in 1952, cast posthumously by the artist's family. Provenance: The artist's family.  Eric Winters represented the fifth generation of sculptors in the Winters family. His talent was recognised from an early age and in 1939 he was the youngest student at the Royal Academy Sculpture School, having been awarded the only open scholarship for the institution. His studies were interrupted by the war years to be resumed in 1947-52, when the Academy re-opened. As a student he won four Landseer prizes for figurative sculpture and was awarded a medal at the XVIth Olympiad Sport in Art exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1948. His passion for sculpture and in particular for portrait sculpture was paving a way for his role as one of the founding members of the Society of Portrait Sculptors, with whom he exhibited regularly from 1952 until his tragically early death at the age of 47.  Another cast of Michelle Winters aged 6 weeks was amongst the works exhibited in the first annual exhibition held by the Society in the winter of 1953 at the Imperial Institute, South Kensington. Eric sold two copies of Michelle’s portrait for 25 guineas each, one of them to Vasco Lazzolo who had two of his own portrait sculptures in the exhibition. The work is a very personal, life cast of the artist’s daughter and a fine sculpture conceived in the period that Malcolm Fry described as bringing a ‘renaissance in the art of portrait sculpture’. Artist's Resale Right may apply to this lot.