David McFall R.A. (1919 - 1988)
Sculptor
1938/1 Head of a young girl |
1944/1 A.E. Bolton Esq. |
1944/2 Ellic Howe |
1944/3 Olga Howe |
1944/4 The Laughing Woman |
1944/7 Victoria Marshall Littner |
1945/1 Elizabeth |
1945/2 Margot |
1945/3 Silvia |
1945/4 Head of an Old Man |
1945/5 "The Blind Healer" |
1946/1 Richard Ellis |
1946/2 Frank Dent |
1946/5 Portrait of an Artist's Model |
1947/1 David Weston Esq. |
1948/1 Jacob Mendelson Esq. |
1949/3 portrait of Fru Astrid Ohnell |
1949/4 "Posthumous Portrait" |
1950/7 "Svea" |
1953/2 Hugh J Taggart FRCS |
1954/1 Mrs. Louis Rose |
1954/3 Eliza |
1954/6 Alderman Frank Sheppard |
1954/9 Mariska |
1955/1 Harley Granville-Barker |
1955/5 Head of Elsa |
1956/1 Lord Methuen A.R.A. |
1956/4 "The Debutante" |
1956/5 Turid |
1956/6 Dr Ralph Vaughan Williams OM |
1957/1 Madame Oda Slobodskaya |
1957/8 Sir Francis Glyn K.C.M.G. |
1958/2 The Rt Hon Sir Winston S Churchill KG OM CH MP |
1958/5 Churchill. Small Head |
1958/6 "The Chartwell Bust" |
1959/2 W Godfrey Allen Esq. MA FSA FRIBA |
1961/4 Muriel |
1963/2 Patricia |
1964/1 Lord Brabazon of Tara GBE MC PC |
1964/5 Dr Bertrand Hallward |
1964/7 Tessa Henderson |
1964/8 William Henderson Esq. |
1964/11 Rt Hon Earl Attlee KG OM CH |
1966/3 Matthew White Ridley, 3rd Viscount Ridley |
1966/5 Sir Steuart Wilson |
1966/6 Rebecca |
1967/1 A Finnish Industrialist |
1968/2 Mrs Joan Muhtar |
1968/3 Head of Bernadette |
1969/1 F.C. Scott Esq |
1970/3 Dr Charles Baker |
1971/5 Mordechai Levene |
1971/11 Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors |
1971/13 Patricia Garrard |
1972/1 Lady Holmes Sellors |
1974/2 Sir George Godber |
1974/3 Josiah Wedgwood |
1974/4 Prof. Sir George Grenfell-Baines |
1975/5 H R H The Prince of Wales |
1977/4 HRH The Prince of Wales In the Dress Uniform of the Welsh Guards |
1980/2 Head of Junko |
1982/1 Inok Chun |
1985/4 Susan Cohen |
1987/2 Richard Collin |
1987/4 Masoud R. Mehran |
1987/7 Hugh Jolly |
1988/7 Marina Moser (unfinished) All rights reserved |
“...I learnt the métier of ‘busting’ from Jacob Epstein – hence bustier in French, and always in bronze. In contrast to the slow contemplative process of stone carving, the bust is modelled at white heat before the sitter has time to get bored so as to animate the portrait with the nervosity of life.”
David McFall - 'Contemporary British Artists'
“Portrait sculpture is a highly nervous performance. And it really is a performance. Anticipating the arrival of a sitter I get very worked up if they’re 10 minutes late. The whole thing is a kind of challenge. And then there comes a moment in a sitting when the temperature rises, a certain warmth is struck up. When this happens you’re away, your performance is on. A portrait’s got to be achieved at high speed. You can’t allow a sitter to get bored or to dry up. You’ve got to keep the conversation going, you’ve got to touch some sympathetic spot. Working at speed, you tend to get the breath of life into a portrait without which it’s just a dead image. And the sitter nearly always has a taxi waiting at the door. There’s no time to fumble or change your mind. I take five sittings and the minimum for a sitting is an hour and a half, preferably two hours. If you go much over two hours they fall asleep or get restless or they want to look at what you’ve done. An hour is too little and two hours may be too much. And a sixth sitting is often a mistake. I remember when I had five sittings with Attlee, I said to him how about one more? And he took his pipe out of his mouth and said “Leave it”. He was right. And he knew nothing about sculpture. Most amateurs overwork. You see where they slaved at it and corrected it. To model well is extremely difficult. You have to be an out and out genius to model well. Epstein was, at his best. And of course Rodin – that American woman called the Duchesse de Choiseul. There are two of them – one’s smiling. That’s an astonishing accomplishment.”
David McFall – The Art of Portrait Sculpture
Animals |
Busts and Heads |
Children |
Churchill studies |
Lettering |
Medals coins plates |
Reliefs |
Stone carvings |
Contemporary British Artists |
On Epstein |
Picasso |
The art of portrait sculpture |
Letters |
Palliser |
Son of Man |
Press |
Obituaries |
Memorial address |