Edwina Sandys

(b. 1938)

Edwina Sandys is a British-born American sculptor, painter, and printmaker whose work frequently addresses themes of freedom, justice, equality, war, peace, and women’s rights. A granddaughter of Winston Churchill, she has lived in New York since the 1970s and has produced major public sculptures internationally over the past four decades. Sandys is particularly known for monumental sculptural works linked to political and social history. In 1979, for the United Nations’ Year of the Child, she created sculptures installed at UN centres in New York, Geneva, and Vienna. Her sculpture Breakthrough (1989), created from sections of the Berlin Wall, commemorated the end of the Cold War and was installed at Westminster College, Missouri, the site of Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech. Related works include BreakFree for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Pillars of Justice (2007) for the Toronto Law Courts. Alongside public sculpture, Sandys has explored themes of gender and identity in works including The States of Woman and The Marriage Bed.