Ian Walters

Ian Homer Walters (April 9 1930 – August 6 2006) was an English sculptor.

Born in Solihull, Walker was educated at Yardley Grammar school and under William Bloye at the Birmingham School of Art. After National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corpscite news|first=Tony|last=Benn|authorlink=Tony Benn|coauthors=Webbe, Claudia|title=Obituary: Ian Walters, Sculptor and socialist whose work included statues of Mandela and Harold Wilson|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/aug/18/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1|work=The Guardian|publisher=Guardian News and Media Limited|date=2006-08-18|accessdate=2008-03-02] he taught sculpture first at Stourbridge College of Art and then from 1957 to 1981 at Guildford School of Art.cite news|first=Peter|last=Cannon-Brookes|title=Ian Walters; Figurative sculptor whose portraits celebrate the heroes of the left|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ian-walters-411949.html|work=The Independent|publisher=Independent News & Media|date=2006-08-15|accessdate=2008-03-02]

A committed socialist from his schooldays, Walker took part in Tito's public sculpture programmes in Yugoslavia in the early 1960s and worked with the African National Congress in the 1970s.

His work includes the memorial to the International Brigades in Jubilee Gardens South Bank, London and a large head of Nelson Mandela (now outside the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London). He had finished the 9-foot tall clay sculpture for the statue of Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square, but died of cancer before it was cast in bronze. He also sculpted a statue of Fenner Brockway in London, a statue of Harold Wilson in Huddersfield. A statue of Stephen Hawking at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology in Cambridge was his last public work.

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