Born in Llangefni, Anglesey in 1918, Kyffin Williams R.A. achieved international recognition as an artist with a highly distinctive style. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London from 1941 to 1944. He went on to become the Senior Art Master at Highgate School from 1944 to 1973, and in 1968 gained a Winston Churchill Fellowship to record the Welsh in Patagonia. Williams's first one-man exhibition was held at P & D Colnaghi, London in 1949. Subsequent solo exhibitions were held at the Leicester Galleries, London, Glynn Vivian Museum & Art Gallery, Swansea, Howard Roberts Gallery, Cardiff and the Tegfryn Gallery, Menai Bridge. He exhibited in Attic Gallery from 1963 and at the Thackeray Gallery, London biennially from 1975. He also exhibited regularly at the Albany Gallery, Cardiff. A retrospective of his work was held in 1987 at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, and subsequently toured to the Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno and the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. A portraits retrospective was held at Oriel Ynys Mon, Llangefni in 1993. Williams was President of the Royal Cambrian Academy from 1969 to 1976, and again from 1992. He was elected Royal Academician in 1974. He was made an Honorary Fellow of University College, Swansea (1989), University College, Bangor (1991) and University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (1992). In 1991 he received the Medal of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. Kyffin Williams died on September 1, 2006.
A welcome reissue with a new foreword by Rian Evans, this book
contains portraits exhibited in the major retrospective exhibition
of 1993 with notes and anecdotes by the artist on the sitters and
circumstances of their painting. Most are his characteristic
vigorous oils worked with a palette knife, but the book also
includes a good selection of his drawings, ink and watercolour
sketches.
It is surprising how successful this photographic record (by
Nicholas Sinclair) is of a painter whose use of thickly modelled
pigment and slices of colour gives his work such a distinctive
texture. The life and power of works like ‘Milein Cosman-Keller’,
‘Richard Hughes’, ‘Jane Taggard’ or ‘Sir Cyril Clarke’ are conveyed
very directly. Although he expressed a preference for painting
elderly people and said that it was many years before he was
satisfied that his technique could deal with 'the smooth face of a
girl', this collection actually contains several delightful oil
portraits of children and young women ‘Anne’, ‘Yolante’, ‘Rachel
Wood’ and the delicately shaded study of ‘Karla’, for example as
well as the beautiful drawing ‘Norma Lopez’. I would have been
inclined to choose one of these for the cover image rather than the
slightly stiff male portrait chosen.
Sir Kyffin's unlikely beginnings as an artist it was recommended
to him as therapy when he was invalided out of the army with
epilepsy and the Slade accepted him 'because everyone else was away
at war' bore surprisingly early fruit when he won the Slade
School Portrait Prize in 1944. Although generally much better known
for his landscapes, he clearly retained a love of portraiture and
regarded several of these pictures as critical in his career's
development. Despite his speed of execution, painting did not come
easily and his notes are full of self-deprecating comments about
failures and the struggle to achieve a good likeness. His fame
resulted in prestigious commissions to paint many eminent Welshmen
but here they appear alongside his friends, neighbours and
fellow-students: gardeners, farmers, soldiers, all treated with
insight, humanity and care.
This collection illustrates that, while clearly influenced by van
Gogh, Kyffin found his own style early and continued to work within
it. He was untempted and unimpressed by the fleeting fashions of
the Art market over the last forty years and it was, no doubt, a
satisfaction that, without having compromised, his work came to be
highly valued in his lifetime. Despite having this rare
self-confidence, his notes on the pictures reveal his humility. On
‘Mrs. Money’, (an old lady in a home) he wrote, ‘She had good hands
and I tried to do justice to them.’ Whether painting an old sailor
on the road, a nervous child or one of the 'Great and Good', Kyffin
always tried to do them justice.
*Caroline Clark @ www.gwales.com*
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