Deyà mourns death of William Waldren

Staff Reporter DEYA yesterday was in mourning for the death of one of its most illustrious sons, William Waldren, who died in London of a thrombosis. He was 79. Mayor Jaume Crespí said that the council was preparing a tribute to him and will name him an Adoptive Son. Waldren, a renowned painter and sculpture who also made a name for himself in the field of archaeology, was born in New York and had lived in Deya since 1952. Some of his most important work as an archaeologist was carried out in the mountain village. In 1962, he set up the Archaeology Museum of Deya, of which he was the director. William Waldren studied art in New York, at the Julien Academy in Paris and the Sant Jordi Fine Arts School of Barcelona, exhibiting extensively throughout the United States and Europe. He moved to Majorca in 1952, and ten years later he became one of the founder-members of the Es Déu des Teix (The Teix Mountain Ten) group of artists, whose aim was to present the latest non-figurative avant garde movements to the Majorcan public. His co-founders in the influential group were Michael Albert, Martin Bradley, Elsa Collie, Frank Hodgkinson, Teodore Kliros, Richard Kozlow, Eugenio Molinaro, Georges Sheridan, John Ulbricht, Thea Winguer, Norman Yanikun and Francisco Barceló. All the founder members were foreigners who lived on the island, and their work had a great influence on many Majorcan artists. In 1992, Waldren held a one-man show of sculptures in olive wood in Deya. Throughout his artistic career, he followed the path of abstract art and often combined conventional and unconventional materials such as plaster or rope in his work. In the field of archaeology, he took his doctorate in 1975 at Oxford and was a lecturer there from that year. In Majorca, he directed excavations in prehistoric settlements of Valldemossa such as Son Ferrandell, Son Mas and Son Olesa and in Soller, at the Muleta cave.