CONWAY — William H. Hawes,

who taught at Hendrix College for 20 years, died on June 18, 2023.

He is survived by his sister, Hollice Hawes Olsen; his son, Clement; his daughter-in-law, Mrinalini Sinha; his nephew, Sam Olsen; his nephew, Rick Hawes; and his niece, Lisa Hawes. His wife of nearly 60 years, Carolyn Hawes, predeceased him in 2011.

He was the son of Samuel Raymond and Gwendolyn Graham Hawes. His death occurred in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he had moved to be with his son and daughter-in-law.

Hawes was born in Wichita, Kan., in 1930. He put himself through Wichita State University and then received an MFA in Art in 1960 from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. In 1953, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served in Alaska rather than Korea. There he participated in the building of the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of northern radar bases.

Hawes taught in the art department at Hendrix College between 1967 and 1987 and was regionally known as a sculptor and painter. Generations of his students knew him as “Uncle Bill” – an approachable teacher who always engaged with their work using his acute eye and deep knowledge of art history. Several of large sculptures – his “air boxes” – can be seen at the Hendrix College Library, and another three can be seen at the Faulkner County Library. Among the artists he especially admired were Philip Guston and Alberto Giacometti.

During his first year at Hendrix, Hawes was interviewed by a reporter for the Log Cabin Democrat, who speculated that he was perhaps a “displaced hippie.” He was very much in sympathy with the demands for social change in the late 1960s; and indeed, had been asked in 1961 to leave a previous teaching job in Beaumont, Texas because he had participated in the racial integration of local lunch counters.

Hawes’s sculptures were 8-10 feet tall, sometimes in a ziggurat shape, and generally surmounted with a small ceramic “box.” When these sculptures were exhibited together, they suggested something like a ruined city or a fanciful dreamscape. They were highly textured – the wood used to build them was usually taken from torn-down houses – and then often stenciled with enigmatic words. Because his work cannot be instantaneously grasped and categorized, Hawes liked to say that he made “unpopular art.” His sculptures offer a difficult beauty that rewards many looks.