Burton treasures by Welsh artist sell for £42,000
Paintings and pen and ink sketches by a renowned Welsh artist - discovered in a Burton house – sold for a combined total of £42,900 to private UK buyers.
the works are by Kyffin Williams, a man widely regarded as the defining artist of Wales during the 20th century.
Such is his importance in the art world, two of the newly-discovered oil paintings were valued at £14,000-£18,000 each.
One, signed with initials, depicts a rustic cottage with mountains beyond. the other shows a mountainous landscape with storm clouds brewing.
the art treasures, which went under the hammer in Hansons Auctioneers’ Country House Antiques Auction on tuesday, also included two pen and ink wash pictures.
the paintings were uncovered by Charles Hanson, owner of Hansons Auctioneers, during a routine house visit at a property in Burton, which is near the firm’s Derbyshire headquarters. He said: “it turns out the lady and gentleman who acquired the paintings in 1961, direct from the studio of Kyffin Williams, were good friends with the artist before he was famous. Apparently, they used to borrow paintings from his studio for a month or so and then exchange them for another one.
“they originally lived in London but moved to Staffordshire in the 1960s. ”
Williams is renowned for rugged landscapes of his beloved north Wales and for his use of a palette knife. Born in Llangefni, Anglesey, in 1918, he later contracted polio encephalitis which led him to develop epilepsy. this led to him failing a British Army medical in 1941 which allowed him to pursue his art.
He enrolled at London’s Slade School of Fine Art in 1941, gaining prizes for portraiture, and went on to teach art at Highgate School, London.
On retirement, Williams returned to Anglesey and spent the next 30 years painting, and promoting Welsh art. He was knighted in 1999.