william newton
Newton’s Law Debbie Burt meets up with equine and life-size sculptor William Newton
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William Newton with his Kauto Star
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www.internationalthoroughbred.co.uk
HE SOMERSET-BASED SCULPTOR William Newton has produced trophies for the UK’s most famous races, the Grand National and the Derby and more recently, life-sized bronzes of the two men often associated with them, Dick Francis and the late Lester Piggott. For Newton, briefly a jockey himself, notably riding a winner at the first attempt at his local course at Wincanton, it was always sculpture that fired his imagination. He enlisted for pottery class at school, but soon realised that he had little interest in producing pots, preferring modelling with clay and making animals. When the father of one of the pupils, the renowned sculptor John Robinson, visited the class, it was a life-changing moment. “I instantly connected with him,” recalls Newton. “We were making figures, mine didn’t have any hair and he just slapped a bit of clay on the side of the head and sort of used his thumb to make some ringlets. “At that moment I was absolutely mesmerised. I went from watching and running my own thumb through what he had done, to trying to replicate it on the other side of the head. He came over and said that’s fantastic, he really gave me a boost.” Robinson lived within cycling distance and soon Newton was a regular visitor to his studio, using his mentor’s smaller studies as the inspiration for his own work. As his skills progressed Newton says: “You couldn’t keep me out of the art room at school. As long as I was creating something, whether it was drawing, painting or sculpting, I was happy. I didn’t excel academically I just did the bare minimum in my other subjects, enough to keep me out of trouble. I left at 16, as soon as I had the
