Sculptor and draughtsman, born in Kent. He took a first-class honours degree in fine art at Newcastle University in 1983, gaining his master’s degree there in 1986, when a British Academy Travelling Scholarship took him to India. Burton won a prize for sculpture in 1983 at the Tyne Tees Northern Open, in 1991 taking the McGrigor Donald Sculpture Prize. In 1990 he won commissions for three bronzes for Newcastle Business Park and Gateshead Garden Festival, then in 1991 commissions for Stevenage Museum. From the outset he was a busy exhibitor, including RA, the 1988 Manchester City Art Gallery Summer Exhibition and Pelter/Sands, Bristol, which gave him a solo show in 1991. Towers, ziggurats and elephants featured in the Bristol show, which revealed Burton’s gift of mischievous wit.