Kyffin Williams’ emotive seascapes which are on display in the artist’s centenary exhibition here at the National Library, should be celebrated in their own right and stand apart from the artist’s other more well-known works. Kyffin’s highly expressionistic style within these monochrome works manages to convey the movement and the violence of a storm at sea in in a tremendously effective manner, reflecting the artist’s own hidden inner turmoil.
Kyffin’s connection to Trearddur Bay, which is located on the west coast of Holy Island off the coast of Anglesey where many of these seascapes were based can be traced back to the artist’s childhood. As a young boy of six years old who would turn 7 the following week he was sent to Trearddur Bay Boarding School in May 1925. He stated in his memoir ‘Across the Straits’: ‘It did not take me long to fall under the spell of the island’s mood. The storms, the sea mists, the wrecks, the wailing sirens, and in summer the peculiar haze that hung over the island, all made Trearddur Bay a very special place’.
The expressionistic impasto technique used in such works as ‘Stormy Sea’ was explained by the artist in the book ‘The Land and the Sea’, 1998: ‘These great storms have always excited me and I seem to be stimulated by the noise and energy of the waves – to such an extent that, when I transfer my frenzied scribbles onto canvas, my own energy attacks the canvas…These paintings are not easy to control for often they try to take over and I lose my tones in a confusion of white wave and spray… My personal chemistry demands the excitement of a storm at sea.’
As the authors Rian Evans and Nicolas Sinclair stated in the recently published work, ‘The Light and the Dark’ on Kyffin’s life, the artist who had suffered with the afflictions of epilepsy and depression throughout his life acknowledged that he expressed his most turbulent feelings through his seascapes. In an interview in 2000, the artist stated that it was due to his battle with epilepsy that he felt a need to apply strongly contrasting colours down onto the canvas, as can be seen in these seascapes. He stated: ‘It might be part of the epilepsy, the excitement – the epileptic shock of dark against light, it’s very exciting you see. Van Gogh was an epileptic and he had the same love of contrast’. Inspired by other notable palette knife users such Gustave Courbet and Van Gogh, Evans and Sinclair also saw a parallel within Kyffin’s seascapes to other iconic works such as Hokusai’s ‘The Wave’ and August Strindberg’s dramatic seascapes. The artist would return to paint the subject throughout his life.
As part of the Seeing Euclid network of exhibitions throughout the UK, the National Library of Wales will display an example of their valuable Euclid collection of books from 7 July to 27 August. The project aims to highlight the legacy of Euclid’s Elements in the early modern period in Britain and Ireland, with displays of books and artefacts from the period. It is curated by the research project Reading Euclid, based at the University of Oxford and funded by the AHRC. The exhibition is a collaboration between nearly thirty institutions across Britain and Ireland.
He compiled the thirteen books of The Elements while working in Alexandria in the third century B.C. His work describes the foundations of Mathematics and dominated the subject for over two thousand years. He developed the concept of logical proof, in which theorems are proved, directly or indirectly, from axioms.
The Library has a large collection of books authored by Euclid. It consists of 270 editions of Euclid’s work which were published from 1484 to 1800. The original collection of 39 volumes was given to the Library by Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford in 1927 and an addition of 11 volumes in 1928. Since then the Library has continued to add to the collection.
An example of a page from "The Elements of the Geometrie of the most auncient Philosopher Euclide... with a preface by John Dee" published in 1570.
An example of a page from "The Elements of the Geometrie of the most auncient Philosopher Euclide... with a preface by John Dee" published in 1570.
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The full title of the volume which the Library will put on display is The Elements of the Geometrie of the most auncient Philosopher Euclide. It is a handsome volume with fold-out diagrams of polyhedra and intersecting planes. It is a translation published in 1570 and interestingly contains a preface by John Dee, who was of Welsh parentage. He is said to have had the largest library in Britain and the fact that he was chosen for the task indicates the esteem in which he was held. He was a brilliant and rather strange man – mathematician, astronomer, adviser to Queen Elizabeth the First but also interested in magic and astrology. Mathematics was not as well developed in Britain at the time as it was in Europe and was seen as only necessary for the study of fields such as astrology and alchemy. However, Dee helped to show that it was applicable to a range of useful applications such as hydraulics and engineering. He was quoted as saying “And for these, and suchlike marvelous arts and feats naturally, mathematically and mechanically wrought and contrived, ought any student and modest Christian philosopher be counted and called a conjurer?”
As part of the Kyffin Williams centenary celebrations, the Library’s Education Service has been delivering many activities for schools, colleges and families, based on one of Wales’s most recognised and popular artists.
During the year free workshops will be delivered to primary and secondary school pupils to coincide with the Library’s main exhibition Kyffin Williams: Behind the Frame, and a bilingual booklet focusing on Kyffin’s life and work is being distributed free of charge to all who take part in the workshops.
So far this year schools from all over Wales have been visiting the National Library to learn more about the artist from Anglesey, like the pupils of Ysgol Trimsaran and Ysgol Mynydd y Garreg, Carmarthenshire. After taking part in the Kids in Museums Takeover Day in January, they returned in May to enjoy the Kyffin exhibition and workshop.
Children emulating one of Kyffin Williams' sketches.
Children learning about the life and history of Kyffin Williams.
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In April a selection of original paintings and drawings by Kyffin Williams were transported from the Library’s storage facilities to Penygroes, Gwynedd, as part of the Class Art project. Workshops on Kyffin’s style and painting technique were led by two leading Welsh artists in two schools; Catrin Williams studied some of Kyffin’s landscapes with the Year 4 pupils of Ysgol Bro Lleu, and Eleri Jones delivered a session on Kyffin’s portraits for Year 12 students at Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle, to support them with their A Level course work.
Welsh artist Catrin Williams studied some of Kyffin’s landscapes with the Year 4 pupils of Ysgol Bro Lleu.
Eleri Jones delivered a session on Kyffin’s portraits for Year 12 students at Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle.
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Kyffin Williams was also the theme of The National Library of Wales’ stand at this year’s Urdd Eisteddfod in Llanelwedd. Throughout the week a small exhibition about Kyffin’s life and career provided a backdrop to art activities where young visitors were given an opportunity to emulate the artist by reproducing sections of one of his landscapes in acrylic paint on canvas. During a workshop on the Tuesday, under the guidance of artist Catrin Williams, children were shown how to produce pastel drawings in the style of Kyffin Williams. Some of the work produced during these sessions will be exhibited in the Library’s Education Room until September.
A chance to recreate one of Kyffin Williams' masterpieces using thick paint and palette knives.
Children at Eisteddfod yr Urdd enjoyed emulating Kyffin's impasto technique.
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Kyffin Williams: Behind the Frame runs until the 1st of September in the Library’s Gregynog Gallery, and the exhibition includes tasks for visiting families – why not have a go at our ‘Kyffin Quiz’ and create your own masterpiece.
For further information on the Library’s free workshops, you are welcome to contact the Education Service on:
01970 632988
01970 632431 addysg@llgc.org.uk
This year is the ‘Year of the Sea’ in Wales, where various individuals and institutions will be celebrating Wales’ epic coastline. Although our coastline is beautiful, it isn’t without its troubles; for nearly 200 years the RNLI lifeboat crews have been busy saving lives at sea, and one man has undertaken an ambitious project that, in his own words, is “about the lifeboat volunteers, for the lifeboat volunteers.”
The Lifeboat Station Project: 12x10 inch Ambrotype by Jack Lowe
Aberystwyth RNLI Crew, Saturday 24th September 2016
The Lifeboat Station Project: 12x10 inch Ambrotype by Jack Lowe
The view from Aberystwyth RNLI lifeboat station, Saturday 24th September 2016
The Lifeboat Station Project: 12x10 inch Ambrotype by Jack Lowe
Female Aberystwyth RNLI Volunteer Lifeboat Crew, Saturday 24th September 2016
The Lifeboat Station Project: 12x10 inch Ambrotype by Jack Lowe
The view from Angle RNLI lifeboat station, Wednesday 23rd March 2016
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The Lifeboat Station Project is photographer Jack Lowe’s mission to record all 238 RNLI stations in the UK and Ireland. But he’s not doing it with a compact camera swung over his shoulder, but with a large format Victorian one, with which he creates stunning images on glass in his mobile ambulance – a decommissioned Ambulance named Neena!
A photographic project of this scale hasn’t been attempted before, although the idea itself stems from an earlier tradition of photographing lifeboat crews. It is Jack’s endeavour to tap into the sense of pride of the unique RNLI volunteers – individuals from all walks of life who give up their time to protect the waters of the British Isles. By visiting every RNLI Lifeboat Station in the UK and Ireland, this will result in an unprecedented archive, preserving a vital aspect of the culture of the British Isles for future generations.
Saturday, the very first exhibition of The Lifeboat Station Project prints opened here at the Library, and will be on display throughout the year. Along with twenty unique ambrotype prints of some Welsh RNLI stations and their crews, Jack has also shared a few of the stories behind the pictures, which can be read and heard using the Smartify App
At the height of his popularity Kyffin was commissioned to paint a succession of portraits, but by his own admission he preferred to turn to portraiture for pleasure.
In our current exhibition Kyffin Williams: Behind the Frame, a variety of portraits are shown from the Kyffin collection, ranging from his early life studies created while a student, to the later commissions of an established artist, but more interesting are the portraits which he painted purely for delight.
Amongst the items on show is a good selection of female portraits. Kyffin admitted that painting women didn’t come easy to him; it took him about twenty years to be happy painting the smooth face of a girl:
“The reason for this was my use of the palette knife for, painting in broad rough areas of paint; it was difficult to achieve the delicacy necessary”.
Norma Lopez was a favourite sitter of his in Trevelin while he visited Patagonia in 1968/69. Kyffin described Norma as an excitable girl “smiling through two large brown eyes”. Norma, who was about 8 years old, loved to tease the artist and when not playing with her brother Paulino enjoyed sitting for her portrait. Kyffin painted her several times, but could never paint her in oils once back in London as the paint didn’t capture her fun and light character.
Kyffin was obsessed by people, the people of his native Anglesey, the ones he observed as a young boy visiting parishioners with his cleric father. That probably explains why he often turned to portray the people around him, like the sketch “Woman with Duster” held in the collection (finished paintings Mrs Hughes (private collection) and Mrs Rowlands (Anglesey County Council)). She’s a composite portrait of many women the artist had known on the island who would patiently and cheerfully go about their cleaning duties.
Kyffin’s paintings are full of emotion, while working on a portrait he’d be happy to catch the likeness of his sitter but just as important was the mood the work would convey, preferring to catch melancholy rather than a smile. In his portrait of Miss Parry he depicts old age and what he summed up as the feelings and thoughts of an older generation “tired and waiting for rest”.
There’s a chance to enjoy these portraits on the walls in Gregynog Gallery until 1st September 2018, come in to see the anonymous nun, Michelle, Norma Lopez, Miss Parry and many more.
The Library is buzzing with activity today as we launch our new exhibition Kyffin Williams: Behind the Frame. So what can you expect?
There are 4 themes in the exhibition ‘Self’, ‘Artist’, ‘People’ and ‘Places’ which is situated in the Gregynog Gallery and Annexe on the second floor of the Library. The artist himself will guide you through the show as many of his own words taken from his diaries, letters and publications are placed around the exhibits. For those who want to delve deeper there is an opportunity to scan selected paintings using the Smartify app; the Library and Oriel Ynys Môn are the first institutions in Wales to use this new technology.
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Upon entering, you will be confronted with a miscellany of Kyffin’s image in various guises, from the early sketches of the pensive young man to the more confident older artist whose eyes gaze directly into your own in an almost challenging way. Diaries and letters delve deeper into the character of the artist, one of the highlights being a particularly endearing letter he wrote to his ‘Mummy & Daddy’ when he was at boarding school in Trearddur.
In ‘Artist’ you will see the making of Kyffin and his life-long influences, especially his association with Van Gogh and the parallels he drew with his fellow epileptic. His paintings, ’Sunflowers with Mountains Beyond’ and ‘Crows and Storm coming’, are of particular note, the latter often thematically compared to one of Van Gogh’s most famous works ‘Wheatfield with Crows’, in which Kyffin mimics Van Gogh’s strong colour combinations and the menacing sky which is said to signify the artist’s loneliness. Some of his early works from his time in the Slade are uncharacteristically ‘Kyffin’ but a fascinating insight into how he perfected his craft.
Turn the corner and you immediately feel as if you are being watched by the many eyes in Kyffin’s portraits. His placement of the sitter on his canvases is intentional and intriguing. Kyffin mentioned in his book ‘Portraits’: “The placing of the head within the confines of the canvas can show the personality of the sitter.” Indeed, the larger more confident subjects fill the canvas and look directly at you, whilst the more timid and neurotic subjects tend to be placed to one side and looking away. Our favourite is Miss Parry; a partially invented character representing his fascination with old age, “especially those who sit and wait for the end to come”.
Although he never saw himself as a traditional portrait painter, Kyffin was obsessed with people. He once said: “I feel that the land and its people are almost part of me”. Kyffin grew up among the hills and valleys of north Wales and was drawn to the landscape and its people, especially the figure of the farmer whom is constant in his work and adorns many living rooms and gallery walls. There are a few of his best examples in the exhibition.
‘Places’ is the largest and most significant theme in the show. His work in this genre was so prolific, it was very difficult to boil it down to fit into the space; but with a little help from Kyffin himself (he often listed his favourites in interviews and in his diaries) we have tried to represent the very best of his of works inspired by the mountains and seascape of Wales and beyond.
The large Welsh landscape wall which is hung in a salon style as an acknowledgement to the artist’s appointment as a Royal Academician in 1973 is a fitting finale to the exhibition. A challenging hanging method never before attempted by our team, but has been our personal highlight of the whole exhibition.
It has been some 13 years since we last dedicated an exhibition to Kyffin and we do hope that you will enjoy the experience and find some favourites of your own…maybe even be inspired to try your hand at creating your very own masterpiece! Do let us know what your own personal highlights are on social media using #Kyffin100 [Twitter: @NLWExhibtion] and remember to download the Smartify App before your visit.
“I beg to be considered not as a Topographer but as a curious traveller willing to collect all that a traveller may be supposed to do in his voyage”
By Thomas Pennant - This image is available from the National Library of Wales, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46359238
By Thomas Pennant - This image is available from the National Library of Wales, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46359238
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In May 1773 the naturalist Thomas Pennant of Downing Hall in Flintshire wrote of his plans for a book of ‘travels at home’. This would become the Tours in Wales, published in three volumes between 1778 and 1783: it was a ground-breaking and profoundly influential work, which would shape people’s ideas about Wales for well over a century.
Pennant was already internationally recognized by the time these Tours appeared. He was known as the author of the beautifully-illustrated British Zoology, as an assiduous correspondent with some of the great naturalists of C18th Europe (including the Comte de Buffon and Carl Linnaeus), and as the adventurous pioneer of two Scottish Tours, which inspired the famous Journey to the Western Isles of Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Pennant’s partnership with the artist Moses Griffith brought Welsh and Scottish scenes to a much wider audience, and encouraged many hundreds of people to undertake their own ‘Home Tours’.
The National Library of Wales holds a rich collection of Pennant’s published works and manuscripts, as well as many of Griffith’s lovely watercolours, some of which will go on display in the Summers Room (5-9 February 2018). The ‘Curious Travellers’ project, funded by the AHRC and run by the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and Glasgow University, has been exploring this wonderful archive, and discovering the delights (and disasters!) of travel in C18th and C19th Wales and Scotland. This is the beginning of modern tourism – and Pennant’s complex legacy is still very much with us today.
To find out more about the project go to: http://curioustravellers.ac.uk/en/
Mary-Ann Constantine, University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies
Our exhibitions team are very busy now as we are gearing up for our major exhibition ‘Kyffin Williams: Behind the Frame’ which opens on 16th February. There are so many amazing collections to choose from – not just his paintings, but his letters, diaries and ephemera from a previously unseen archive. It has been an immense yet enjoyable task; there is enough material to fill our extensive gallery over and over again!
At the same time we have been preparing almost 70 items for an exhibition at Oriel Ynys Môn entitled ‘Kyffin Williams: Celebrating a Centenary’ which opens on 3rd February. In return there are few little gems coming here on loan from the collection of Oriel Ynys Môn, which you can see on display at the Library. One of which is an emotive depiction of a storm across the Menai Strait which is the same view of an oil painting in our collection entitled ‘Storm Approaching’. It was Ian Jones, Buildings and Collections Manager at Oriel Môn, who noticed the link between their drawing and our oil painting: “Kyffin called the work ‘Beaumaris’, but it’s a view of the Menai Strait and Eryri beyond from Glanrafon, near Llangoed. Beaumaris is in the middle of the drawing behind the trees on the shore of the Menai.”
Kyffin was a staunch supporter of the Library and Oriel Ynys Môn and he would be thrilled to know that we continue to work together to share his collections with the nation.
For regular updates on the progress of the exhibition, follow us on
Twitter: @nlwexhibition
Instagram: @nlwales
#Kyffin100
The need to conserve, preserve, catalogue and interpret our collections is a vital element of the work of the National Library of Wales, thereby making them available to the public. As the Library is home to a significant number of Kyffin Williams’ most prominent paintings and as we celebrate his life in 2018, safeguarding these and ensuring that they are correctly framed is an integral part of the conservation process.
Not only does a frame protect a painting from damage, but it also affects the presentation of the finished work. Indeed a good frame choice can greatly enhance a work of art and elevate the experience of the individual viewing the contents. Selecting the right frame for a work of art is a skill in itself. Kyffin had very definite ideas about how to frame his paintings, and the Library has embarked on a new conservation project to re-frame some of its works with the aim to honour the artist’s original vision.
Kyffin Williams
Kyffin Williams
Kyffin Williams
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The Framing the Future Fundraising Campaign will fund this key conservation project to enable Kyffin’s work to be cared for and appreciated by future generations.
Framing one art work will cost in the region of £2,000 and the generous support of our supporters will allow us to do more of the work. Every contribution will make a real difference and safeguard these iconic works for the future.
In less than a month’s time, the Library’s Arthurian exhibition will close its doors, and our hero will return to his isle of enchantment.
To mark this year’s Explore your Archive, two events at the National Library on the 15th of November drew attention to all things legendary and archival here.
Picture 715
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A lunchtime presentation by Scott Lloyd of RCAHM Wales (author of The Arthurian Place Names of Wales) discussed myths, legends and archaeology, drawing on examples from over a century of archival accumulation by the Commission.
A gallery talk by Maredudd ap Huw, curator of the Arthurian exhibition, led visitors on a trail following the king in his many guises: from the legendary Welsh figure in sources such as the Black Book of Carmarthen and the White Book of Rhydderch, through his medieval French manifestations, before returning to his mixed fate in Tudor Britain.
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It is unlikely that King Arthur himself was an archival creator: he was far too busy to keep minutes, file correspondence, and audit accounts. However, manuscripts and books concerning the king may still be seen and enjoyed at the Library’s Hengwrt Gallery until he finally sets sail on December 16th.
A blog about the work and collections of the National Library of Wales.
Due to the more personal nature of blogs it is the Library's policy to publish postings in the original language only. An equal number of blog posts are published in both Welsh and English, but they are not the same postings. For a translation of the blog readers may wish to try facilities such as Google Translate.
