Biography
William Jefferies (b. UK) trained at Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. From 1976-77 he worked at the Edinburgh Tapestry Company, also known at Dovecot Studios. The athletic male body, a regular and central element of his imagery, is the subject of March Diver and a particularly good example of the most typical aspects of his work. Pronounced variations in texture through the use of widely assorted yarns and exotic and experimental weaving techniques are his other major trade mark and March Diver is a veritable patchwork of small areas of these variations. The combination of so many variants in yarn and weave usually leads to distortions in the finished piece and it is a measure of Williams Jefferies' skill and commitment to tapestry that such problems have been avoided. The technical skills which assemble these differently textured building blocks into a sound structure is complemented by Jefferies' ability to compose a coherent image from them.