Edwina Sandys

Last updated

Edwina Sandys
MBE
Born (1938-12-22) 22 December 1938 (age 85)
NationalityBritish; American
OccupationArtist
Spouses
  • (m. 1960;div. 1970)
  • Richard D. Kaplan
    (m. 1985;died 2016)
Children2, including Hugo Dixon
Parent(s) Duncan Sandys
Diana Churchill
Relatives Sir Winston Churchill (grandfather)

Edwina Sandys MBE (born 22 December 1938) [1] is an English artist and sculptor. She is the granddaughter of Winston Churchill.

Contents

Early life

Sandys was a debutante, and was presented to Queen Elizabeth II. [2] After attending a genteel girls’ school she went to Paris, then had a job "answering the doorbell" for a dress designer, and a stint as a secretary. [3] She later became a Sunday Telegraph columnist and a novelist. [2] Her career as an artist began in 1970. [3]

Notable works

"Breakthrough" HPIM4287 Berlin wall recreated at Fulton, USA.jpg
"Breakthrough"

Sandys' work titled "Breakthrough", at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, features eight sections of the Berlin Wall. The college was the site of her grandfather Sir Winston Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech in 1946 [4] and is now the site of the National Churchill Museum. [5] The silhouette cutouts from the Wall segments became the premise of another work, "BreakFree", displayed at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York.

Sandys also worked with the Missouri University of Science and Technology, located in Rolla, Missouri, to use a new way to make deep cuts in granite to create the Millennium Arch sculpture which stands across the campus from their Stonehenge monument. The Arch is a single trilithon with a vague silhouette of a man and a woman on each of its supporting megaliths, several meters from the arch. [6]

In an interview with New York Social Diary Edwina discusses one of her more well known works, "Christa". Edwina describes her reasoning behind the sculpture, explaining that though she is not a religious person, she felt the need to represent women within what's often considered the most important image: Jesus on the cross. She states that the sculpture showed the suffering of women as well. [7]

Edwina Sandys' Eve's Apple in Odette Sculpture Park in Windsor, Ontario Edwina Sandys Odette Sculpture Park.jpg
Edwina Sandys' Eve's Apple in Odette Sculpture Park in Windsor, Ontario

Publications

Her published works include the book Edwina Sandys Art, [8] and an illustrated quiz book entitled Social Intercourse. [9]

Honours

Personal life

She is the eldest daughter and second child of Baron Duncan-Sandys and Diana Churchill, and a granddaughter of the statesman Sir Winston Churchill. [1]

She married Piers Dixon in 1960 and they were divorced in 1970. [2] They have two sons, Mark Pierson Dixon (b. 1962) and Hugo Duncan Dixon (b. 1963). [3]

She married the architect Richard D. Kaplan in 1985; he died in 2016. [11]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Statue of Winston Churchill, Woodford</span> Statue by David McFall in Woodford, London

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References

  1. 1 2 Lovell, Mary S. (2012). "1938-9 Towards Armageddon". The Churchills: a family at the heart of history - from the Duke of Marlborough to Winston Churchill. London: Abacus. p. 401. ISBN   9780349119786. The year 1938 was a bad one for Clementine's health... Again, Winston was too busy to join her. He wrote to her on 19 December... Ten days later Diana gave prematurely and easily to a baby daughter whom she called Edwina. 'The baby is tiny but perfect,' Winston reported, 'and by my latest news, thriving.'
  2. 1 2 3 Gould Keil, Jennifer (12 September 2013). "Real Estate: Churchill's granddaughter puts SoHo loft on the market". New York Post . Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 Green, Michelle (11 July 1983). "Sir Winston's Granddaughter, Edwina Sandys, Is a Chip Off the Old Bloke". People . Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  4. Churchill, Winston (5 March 1946). "The Sinews of Peace ('Iron Curtain Speech')". Winstonchurchill.org. International Churchill Society . Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  5. "Berlin wall history". nationalchurchillmuseum.org. National Churchill Museum . Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  6. "Sandys, Edwina". chisholmgallery.com. Chisholm Gallery. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  7. Ballen, Sian (18 November 2011). "NYSD House: Edwina Sandys". New York Social Diary . Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  8. Seebohm, Caroline, ed. (2011). Edwina Sandys art. New York, N.Y: Glitterati Inc. ISBN   9780982379998.
  9. Sandys, Edwina (2013). Social Intercourse - an illustrated quiz book. Edwina Sandys. ISBN   9780615805566.
  10. "No. 49583". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 31 December 1983. p. 18.
  11. Staff writer (26 January 2016). "Obituary: Richard Kaplan". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 August 2018.