WILLIAMS, JR., Winthrop (Tuck)

Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff, Arizona Friday, June 15, 2012 Winthrop (Tuck) Williams Jr. (1929 – 2012) Tuck Williams, 82, died on June 5th, 2012 at 1:19am in Tucson, Arizona. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri on November 24, 1929 and son to Winthrop Taylor Williams and Frances Royster Williams of Westwood Hills, Kansas. Winthrop Williams Jr. nicknamed “Tuck”, was an inspiration for one of his mother’s characters in her literary work “Cuddles and Tuckie” which was a cartoon strip and long-running radio series syndicated in The Kansas City Star from 1932 to 1960 and in 50 other newspapers throughout the United States and in Mexico and Japan. Tuck graduated from Pembroke Country Day School in 1948. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Master of Fine Arts in Design from the University of Kansas before accepting a position to teach in the Art Department at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ in 1961. In 1963 he was nominated for one of the Nations Ten Outstanding Young Men Awards. He taught: sculpture, anatomy for artists, three-dimensional design and bronze casting at NAU for 34 years until his retirement in 1995. He designed and constructed the sculpture equipment for the university while setting up the bronze casting foundry. He built one sculpture class into a sculpture major and designed the new sculpture wing of the creative arts center. Tuck also designed and constructed the N.A.U. Crest on the Activity Center, the bronze sculpture on the Biological Sciences Building, the bronze bust of the late Senator Henry Fountain Ashurst in the Eastburn Education Center, the Alumni Award, the awards for the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, and created a free standing bronze sculpture at the entrance to the College of Creative Arts at NAU. Tuck’s sculptures are in public and private collections in New York, Kansas City, St. Paul, Tulsa, Tucson, Flagstaff, Sedona, Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Tuck’s thoughts on his sculptures: “Bronze Garden Finials: The spires, obelisks and minarets of the past represent links between heaven and earth. My bronze garden finials carry on that old tradition. Their symmetry and simplicity stand in complimentary contrast to the complexities of nature. They are: peaceful points of relief in a complicated environment, a center of focus for meditation, places where the eye can rest. As accents in a garden, they symbolize a high, clean, archetypal rightness, a noble timeless serenity, a calm classic stillness and in reaching upward they suggest a transcendence of the world!” Tuck is survived by his wife: Nancy Emmert Williams, son and daughter in law: Whitney Thornton Williams and Ella Williams, daughter and son in law: Adrienne Stephanie Williams and Juan Pablo Guzman, 3 grandsons: Chancellor Thornton Williams, Cody Taylor Williams, and Eduardo Benjamin Guzman-Williams, and 1 granddaughter: Francesca Isabel Guzman-Williams. The service to celebrate his life will be held on Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 10:00am at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 100 Arroyo Pinon Drive, Sedona, AZ 86336 (1/2 block South of the Intersection of 89A West and Dry Creek Road and Arroyo Pinon Drive) followed by a gathering at his home, 100 Woodland Drive, Sedona, AZ 86336. Reverend Mary Piotrowski, Rector (928) 282-4457 This obituary was prepared by the Advertising Department (928) 556-2279.