Robert de Quin was born in Namur, Belgium and came to England with his family as a war refugee in the late 1930s. After the war he attended Hornsey College of Art between 1945 and 1950 receiving a broad based art education which incorporated both two and three dimensional work. A skilled draughtsman his early sculptures in metal were expressions of the nude female form. Later his works became more abstract and he was inspired to incorporate industrially manufactured multiples like tubes, washers, bolts and screws as well as waste material. Echo was made from scrap left over from the process of machine stamping. Later still the art of welding itself became an expressive aspect of the works.
De Quin was a member of the Free Painters and Sculptors, a group originally formed by artists from the Institute of Contemporary Arts to further the aims and ideals of progressive art in post-war Britain. Other artists included Lyall Watson, Francis Newton Souza and Frank Avray Wilson.
He exhibited at the Mall Galleries, Loggia Gallery and at numerous public exhibitions of large and small scale sculpture.
