Elected ARSA: 18 March 1970
Sydney Birnie Stewart was a native of Peterhead and was educated at the Academy there before studying sculpture at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. In 1938 he entered the Royal College of Art where he worked until the outbreak of the Second World War. He served with the Royal Armoured Corps for a year before returning to complete his studies at the Royal College where he was awarded the Gold Medal for Sculpture.
He taught in Hammersmith School of Art, Maidstone College of Art and St Martin’s School of Art in London before taking up his appointment as Superintendent of the Evening School at Edinburgh College of Art in 1953.
He is remembered mainly for his prolific figurative works in bronze and for his carvings and constructions in wood, a medium in which he excelled as a fine craftsman.
