William Lamb

[close] William Lamb (1 June 1893 – 12 January 1951) was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a survivor of the “lost generation” who came of age in 1914, and was scarred, both mentally and physically, by the First World War.

Lamb completed his training in 1915 as a right-handed artist. A war wound incapacitated his right hand, so that after the war he had to retrain as a left-hander. His urge to create was in no way diminished and his preferred medium was sculpture.

Lamb's most productive period was from 1924 to 1933. As a result of an education on strictly traditional lines, he developed a style of modelling that was classically accurate, but which expressed the character and background of his subject. Although he modelled Queen Elizabeth II as Princess Elizabeth aged six, in 1932, he generally eschewed the rich, the famous and the heroic. Instead Lamb settled permanently in his native Montrose, Angus, Scotland, and sculpted the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood, concentrating upon working class models, especially from the fishing community.