"Edwina Sandys ART." The remarkable story of an English aristocrat whose artworks grace United Nations buildings, museums and private collections.

C4 Global Communications

Edwina Sandys, the renowned British-born artist and author, is known for creating art pieces on diverse subjects, which often address questions about politics and society, and sometimes identified with feminism. Her clearly recognizable style uses positive and negative images to powerful effect. The large installations are prominently displayed in museums and institutions around the world. Her giant sculptures are in sharp contrast to her irresistible, witty portraits. "Having one of them on the wall is like having her presence in the room. They radiate her personality as a rose spreads its scent. Her voice speaks from the canvas as if on tape," writes journalist Sir Peregrine Worsthorne about Sandys' colorful paintings. "I sketched everybody who came my way: the children, Nanny, friends, deliverymen " she says.

A striking red head, Sandys is the second child of Diana Spencer Churchill and British Minister Lord Duncan-Sandys, and the granddaughter of Sir Winston and Lady (Clementine) Churchill. In 1983 Sandys painted the image of Churchill the artist in his English garden at Chartwell, and again in 1991 she painted "Winston at Work," portraying her grandfather with two of his favorite occupations: writing and painting. Her grandfather, who had red hair as a young man, was the first painter she ever saw at work. "I have the shining example of Grandpapa," says Sandys "In almost every field he was successful. I have this beacon in my life."

For the 1979, United Nations' Year of the Child, Sandys created three monumental sculptures for UN Centers in New York, Geneva and Vienna. Ten years later she used dismantled sections of the Berlin Wall to create an extraordinary 32 foot long sculpture, "Breakthrough", installed at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where, in 1946, Winston Churchill gave his historic "Iron Curtain" speech. As well as tackling political subjects,Sandys frequently explores the relationship between man and woman. From her series "The States of Women", two of her pieces, "Biological Clock" and "Marriage Bed - sometimes a bed of roses, sometimes a bed of nails," are in the Brooklyn Museum of Art collection.

Ashton Hawkins, former Secretary and Counsel of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, describes her artistic talents: "I feel Edwina has more ideas coming out of her in any given period than many artists have in a whole long life. She's not afraid of using up her ideas. Whether it's sculpture or whether it's drawing or whether it's prints, she's not in any way hampered by the medium. She likes every medium she finds. The color and the abstraction serve each other's purpose very well. It's one of the things you remember about Edwina's work after you walk out of the room."

This new book "Edwina Sandys ART" is an intriguing retrospective of her work. Author Anthony Haden-Guest describes Sandys in the foreword: "Her work is as in-your-face in its femaleness as was that of Hannah Wilke or Louise Bourgeois or as is that of Kiki Smith, but there is nothing of the abject in it, no sense that she is giving form to dark experience. Rather she is playfully - and sometimes painfully - witty."

The 222 page book of Sandys' "ART" opens with historic family photographs of the Sandys and Churchill families. It includes a portrait of her ancestor Sir Edwin Sandys, a founder of the Virginia Company which established the Jamestown settlement in 1607, Edwina as a young girl sitting with her grandmother, Lady Clementine Churchill, and standing with the family group at her sister Celia's christening. Other photographs show Sandys at school, and her grandmother pouring tea at Downing Street, September 1940.

Written by Caroline Seebohm, the eleven chapters are both provocative and a lot of fun. Critics agree that Sandys' palette is distinctive and distinctively used in a delightful blaze of Matisse-like colors. "If I could only have one color, it would be red," she says. " I have always been drawn like a magnet to red and only when sated do I turn to blue and yellow, the other primary colors." Her wicked lifestyle-drawings and colorful family portraits show a keen eye and a vivacious sense of humor. "Once I have sketched someone's features a few times, I have them firmly ingrained in my brain. I don't have to look at them again.I can conjure them up at will," she says. Pen and ink color portraits in the book are of Peregrine Worsthorne, Winston Churchill, Duncan Sandys, Celia Sandys, Sarah Churchill, Ann-Mari McDougall, and Andras Kalman.

Sandys' large sculpture installations include: "Pillars of Justice" 2007: Painted steel, 15'. A pediment supported by eleven columns shaped in human form, installed outside the Toronto Law Courts. "Twin Crosses" 2003: made of stainless steel with a fragment from the destroyed World Trade Center, for the US Embassy Residence in Dublin. "The piece from the Twin Towers is only the size of a shopping bag," she recalls. "But the gaping hole reminded me of Edvard Munch's The Scream - silent relentless, unremitting, continual howl of agony. In my mind I saw the fragment as a head imbued with humanity, not just a sterile piece of metal."

"Millennium Arch" 2000: 18'. Granite figures of man and woman at the University of Missouri. "Tulips" 1999: 12'. Aluminum giant red tulips, installed at Clark Botanic Gardens, Hempstead, NY. "Eve's Apple" 1998: 12'. Painted Steel, in Windsor, Ontario. "Team Spirit" 1995: 20.' National Data Company, Atlanta. "Paradise Regained" 1992: 18'. Painted Aluminum at UN Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro. "Branches of Promise" 1989: Laminated glass and stainless steel, 14' arches formed by 6 trees, Monsanto Company, St. Louis. "Woman Free" 1989: 15'. Carrara Marble. Pedestrian plaza, UN Vienna, Austria. "I envisioned a large rough marble block and a woman emerging out of it, symbolically breaking the bonds that had constrained her throughout history" says Sandys of her iconic sculpture.

Edwina Sandys' sculpture Christa (1975) remains her most prominent bronze work. As the first representation of a female Christ on a cross, it provoked frenzied attention worldwide. Shown first in London, it was then shown in galleries and churches in Rome, Toronto, New York, Washington, Kansas City, Stanford and Yale Universities. This was the first of Sandys' work to be identified with feminism. Christa was displayed in 1984 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York during Holy Week. Paul Moore, the Bishop of New York, reminded the congregation that women as well as men are called upon to share the suffering of Christ.

Dean Morton, describes the scene at St. John the Divine: "All hell broke loose. The press was there and films were made all day. The news hit Rome on Easter Day. Nothing was lukewarm. Edwina is always interested in touching the edge. The response was electric. Christa became an incredible learning experience for people in our Church, and in Churches all over the world."

The mother of two sons, Mark and Hugo Dixon, Sandys is now married to architect Richard Kaplan, and currently living and working in Soho, New York. She is the author of two witty, illustrated books: "Penelope in Belgravia" and "Eve & Adam."

In all, Sandys' art ranges from surrealism and graphic cartooning to monumental bronzes and marble pieces, from abstraction to high realism, from the frivolous to the sublime.

Inspired by Stonehenge, continuing her "Woman Free" theme, Sandys next ambitious project is "Millennium Circle." Pairs of upright stones connected by lintel form part of a great circle. The Woman Free figure will be cut out from each upright stone and all the figures will stand proudly, free and clear, some within the Circle some outside it. When built, the 18 foot high "Millennium Circle" will encompass 24 individual carvings on a footprint 75 feet in diameter." Sandys is currently looking for a home with the right credientials for her "Millennium Circle."

Image Captions
First Page (from left to right):
1. Edwina at the dedication of Breakthrough; November 9th, 1990. Taken by Rich Sugg, The Kansas City Star
2. Eve's Apple. Odette Sculpture Park, Windsor, Ontario; 1998. Taken by C. Cheong
3. Woman Free. Vienna, Austria; 1989. Taken by Richard Kaplan
4. Edwina at the United Nations; 1979. Taken by Mark Dixon

Last Page (from left to right):
1. Edwina with her grandmother, Clementine Churchill; 1949. Taken by Toni Frissell
2. Winston at Work; 1991. Collection of Barbara and Richard J. Mahoney
3. Tulips; 2005. Brooklyn Bridge Park. Taken by Etienne Frossard
4. The Common Touch; 1975. Collection unknown
5. Edwina Sandys with Adam and Eve; 1982. Coe Kerr Gallery, New York

http://agcontemporaryart.com/

Edwina Sandys Website
Glitterati Website
Edwina Sandys Biography
Edwina Sandys ART Presentation, 14 Images
For Interviews with Edwina Sandys please contact
Caroline Graham
C4 Global Communications
1625 17th Street, Santa Monica. CA 9002.
310 899 2727
Caroline@c4global.com