Cain and Abel (1952)

F. E. McWilliam exhibited five drawings and five versions (two in metal and wire, one in metal and two in wood) of the group ‘Cain and Abel’ at the Hanover Gallery, London in October–November 1952 (12–16). The Tate version (N06164) in aluminium was made later in 1952 as a maquette for the Unknown Political Prisoner Competition, where it won an Arts Council National Prize of £25. The artist wrote (22 May 1953): ‘I took this as a symbol of man's eternal persecution of man, of which the political prisoner is but the contemporary symptom.... It is in a form of aluminium made direct not cast’.

This work, of two figures, one standing over the other lying on the ground, holding an object aloft as if to use as a weapon is possibly the version now at F. E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio, Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland, acquired in 1993.

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