Kyffin williams early life
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He believed that Van Gogh was compelled to express himself: 'He wanted to communicate, he just had to paint his love of things, be it flowers or people or landscape, and that was it'. This trip was very important for his art. Today, his legacy is perpetuated through the Kyffin Williams Drawing Prize, established in 2009 to support emerging Welsh artists.
Because he was so grateful for their help, he left his papers and many of his artworks to the National Library. This was to be his home for the rest of his life. He was about four years old when he painted his first picture, and he continued to paint until the end of his long life. Williams attended Moreton Hall and later Shrewsbury School, where a bout of polio encephalitis in adolescence led to lifelong epilepsy—an affliction he later regarded as “my greatest fortune.” In 1937, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 6th Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers but was medically discharged in 1941.
Encouraged by a physician to take up art, he enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, studying from 1941 to 1944. He was active with the North Wales Arts Association, and lectured extensively on art throughout the country. It was a matter of great pride for Kyffin Williams that his ancestral roots were deep in the land of Wales, in Anglesey (his father's family), in Montgomeryshire (where the name Kyffin came from) and in the vicinity of Strata Florida in Ceredigion (the burial place of his great-great-grandmother on his mother's side).
He also worked hard to support Welsh art schools and Welsh art in general.
Kyffin Williams never married. He lived in Pwllfanogl, near Llanfairpwll, on the island of Anglesey in Wales. This is the largest collection in the world of Kyffin's work. He won awards for his portrait paintings in his second and third years. He realized for the first time that the act of painting a picture was not just a matter of placing images on paper or canvas, but that love and mood were essential aspects of the creative process.
WILLIAMS, Sir JOHN KYFFIN (1918-2006), painter and author
Name: John Kyffin Williams
Date of birth: 1918
Date of death: 2006
Parent: Essyllt Mary Williams (née Williams)
Parent: Henry Inglis Wynne Williams
Gender: Male
Occupation: painter and author
Area of activity: Art and Architecture; Literature and Writing
Author: David Meredith
Kyffin Williams was born at Tanygraig, Llangefni, Anglesey, on 9 May 1918, the second son of Henry Inglis Wynne Williams (1870-1942), a bank manager, and his wife Essyllt Mary (1883-1964), daughter of Richard Hughes Williams, rector of Llansadwrn.
He was elected a Royal Academician in 1974 and knighted in 1999, becoming the first Welsh painter to receive the honor. In 1968 he was awarded the Churchill Fellowship to record the Welsh community in Patagonia. More than a painter of mountains, Williams became a moral and aesthetic touchstone—his work a testament to the enduring power of solitude, conviction, and the land.
It was called Kyffin Williams: The Man Who Painted Wales.
Williams' old home, a cottage called "Min y Môr" by the Menai Strait, is now a holiday rental.
Early Life & Education
Born on 9 May 1918 in Llangefni, Anglesey, Wales, Sir Kyffin Williams emerged as a defining figure in 20th-century Welsh art.