Willi Soukop (1907-1995)

Willi Soukop, RA (5 January 1907 - 8 February 1995) was a sculptor, member of the Royal Academy and early teacher of Elisabeth Frink. Wilhelm Joseph Soukop was the son of a Moravian shoemaker whose horrific experiences in the First World War led to a mental breakdown and his disappearance immediately following the war’s end. From an early age Soukop had to work in a factory, attending evening classes at the arts and crafts school in Vienna before managing to get into the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna (1928–1934). In 1934 he met an English woman who invited him to England. He moved to a studio at Dartington Hall, Devon, and, 1935–45, taught part-time at Dartington Art School and at Blundell's School (apart from nine months in 1940 when, because of his Austrian citizenship, he was interned in Canada). Soukop married and moved to London in 1945, teaching at Bromley College of Art (1945-6), Guildford College of Art (1945