The artistic appeal of Edwina Sandys lies in her diverse subject matter. She has tackled big ideas with panache. Her clearly recognizable style uses positive and negative images to dramatic effect.
During the past 40 years Edwina has created art of international acclaim that includes sculpture and paintings. For the 1979 United Nations’ Year of the Child, she created three different monumental sculptures, installed at UN centers in New York, Geneva and Vienna. A decade later she created Woman Free for the United Nations’ Division for the Advancement of Women, Vienna, Austria. In 1989, to mark the end of the Cold War, Edwina used sections of the Berlin Wall to create a sculpture, Breakthrough, now permanently sited at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where in 1946 her grandfather Winston Churchill gave his historic “Iron Curtain” speech. Subsequently, Edwina created BreakFree, also cut out from the Berlin Wall, for the Freedom Court at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library at Hyde Park, New York.
In 2007 Edwina’s Pillars of Justice was installed in front of the Toronto Law Courts at the McMurtry Gardens of Justice. The 20-foot-wide aluminum sculpture consists of a stylized courthouse facade supported by pillars shaped like men and women. These represent the jury, the part of the legal system in which the public most often participates. “People are the pillars of justice,” she says.
Edwina does not focus solely on political subjects, but frequently explores the relationships between man and woman. Major works include her series The States of Woman for the New York Academy of Sciences, which include her iconic Eve’s Apple, and The Marriage Bed, which is in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum.
British-born Edwina Sandys is a United States citizen and has been a New Yorker since the 1970s. Edwina was married for thirty years to Richard D. Kaplan, the late New York architect.
Through her unique life experience, Edwina relates her work to the global issues of our time; environment, equality, war and peace, and in particular women’s causes, and emancipation. Her art now reaches a broad audience through the PBS biographical documentary One Bite of the Apple and her book Edwina Sandys ART.
True Art is always for Art’s sake—but it can also be other things as well. Amidst all the pressing needs of the world, Art may seem to some an unnecessary add-on, but consider…What would the World be without the wonders of Art? The legacy of great civilizations is the Art they leave behind—very often Art is all that survives.
The ancients never doubted the power of Art—it was their TV, Movies, and Photos. Think of the superhuman effort required to erect Stonehenge, to sculpt the Easter Island monuments, to build the Pyramids.
My work is often inspired by political and social themes, and also, often quite naturally, reflects my life on a much more personal level—for example, expressions of Joy and Sensuality.
I intend my art to be a potent view of the wit and wisdom I experience on my journey through life.
— Edwina Sandys
Edwina in the News
August 2023 - “A Woman Free: Edwina Sandys”, Margot Magazine - Issue 4
November 8, 2022 - “Churchill's Aura, and Bright Colors, Draw New Fans to His Art”, The New York Times (requires paid subscription)
October 23, 2021 - Everything Zoomer
October 1, 2021 - Toronto Star
October 23, 2020 - America’s National Churchill Museum
Major Works
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Pillars of Justice (2007)
Painted Steel, 15’ high by 20’ wide. A classical pediment supported by eleven columns shaped in human form. The visitor stands in the vacant space and becomes the “twelfth juror”.
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Twin Crosses (2003)
Stainless Steel, incorporating an actual piece of the destroyed World Trade Center. US Embassy Residence, Dublin, Ireland.
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Millenium Arch (2000)
Granite, 15’ high. An arch with the figures of man and woman cut out from the rough-hewn upright stones. The polished figures stand free. University of Missouri, Rolla, MO.
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Tulips (1999)
Aluminum, 10’ high. Giant tulips, exhibited Park Ave., NYC. Brooklyn Bridge Park. Permanently installed Clark Botanic Gardens, Town of North Hempstead, NY.
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Eve’s Apple (1998)
Painted Steel, 12’ high. Odette Sculpture Garden, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
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Team Spirit (1995)
Stainless Steel, 20’ high. Star-like figures support each other to form a network. National Data Company, Atlanta, GA.
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Paradise Regained (1992)
Painted Aluminum, 18’ high. UN Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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Breakthrough (1990)
Sections of Berlin Wall, 12’ high by 32’ long. Figures are cut through the Wall. Westminster College, Fulton, MO, the 1946 site of Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech.
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Break Free (1990–94)
eSections of the Berlin Wall, 12’ high. Figures of man and woman free themselves from oversized barbed wire. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY.
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Branches of Promise (1989)
Laminated Glass & Stainless Steel, 14’ high. Arches formed by six intertwined trees. Monsanto Headquarters, St. Louis, Mo.
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Woman Free (1989)
Carrara Marble, 15’ high. A Polished woman stands free of rough-hewn marble block. United Nations, Vienna, Austria.
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Child, Family, Generations (1979- 80)
Marble, Bronze, Aluminum, 15,’ 14’, 12’ high. Three separate sculptures in different materials, installed at UN Centers in New York, Geneva & Vienna.
Solo Shows include
Crane Kalman Gallery, London
Origin Gallery, Dublin
Coe Kerr Gallery, NYC
Iona Studio, Toronto, Ontario
Salomon Arts Gallery, New York
Museum of Palm Springs, CA
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Hofstra University, NY
New York Academy of Sciences
National Museum Women in the Arts, DC
Yaneff Gallery, Toronto
Galleria del’Obelisco, Rome
Masterworks National Gallery, Bermuda
Ann Norton Sculpture Garden, Palm Beach, FL
Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale
Chelsea Art Museum, New York
Group Shows include
Brooklyn Museum, NY
PaineWebber Gallery, New York
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach
Columbus Museum of Art
Delaware Art Museum
Winnipeg Gallery
Carter Burden Gallery, NY
Permanent Collections include
Ronald Reagan Library
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
Marriage Bed, 2003. Mixed media, 74 x 54 x 48 in. (188 x 137 x 122 cm).
Marriage—sometimes a bed of roses…sometimes a bed of nails.” —Anonymous