Product Description

A new edition of a collection of over 80 portraits in oil, watercolour and pencil reproduced in full colour with accompanying comments on each portrait by the artist. This edition includes a new foreword by art critic Rian Evans, and an additional picture by Kyffin Williams.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #244845 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-24
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 198 pages

About the Author
Sir Kyffin Williams was born in Llangefni, Anglesey in 1918 and died in 2006. He had lived on the island for most of his life and, like his forefathers, a long line of clergymen of whom the artist was immensely proud, he was buried in Llansadwrn. The artist stands out among the great figures of Welsh art in the second half of the twentieth century as landscape painter, portraitist and outspoken critic of the establishment. In his portraits and in his writing, his humour, pereceptiveness and compassion all came to the fore, as Rian Evans points out in her insightful foreword to this edition. Having been invalided out of the army while in his early twenties, Kyffin later had cause to bless the epilepsy which steered him in an alternative direction, and to take up painting. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and among his achievements as a student was the Slade s portrait prize in 1944. It was the first of many accolades. After years of teaching, travel and painting, in 1974 he was awarded the OBE. He was also honoured by many Welsh establishments, including the National Eisteddfod, the University of Wales, the Contemporary Art Society of Wales and the Honourable Society of of Cymmrodorion. He was President of the Royal Cambrian Academy for over twenty years and was a member of the Royal Academy. In 1999, he received a knighthood. In 1968 he was awarded a Winston Churchill fellowship which enabled him to visit Patagonia, which gave rise to a whole body of portraits and drawings recording a Welsh way of life in South America. These, along with a great number of other works, are now owned by the National Library of Wales.