Item NLW MS 24044D, f. 40. - Kyffin Williams letter to John Harry Fisher Evans

Identity area

Reference code

NLW MS 24044D, f. 40.

Title

Kyffin Williams letter to John Harry Fisher Evans

Date(s)

  • 13 August 1987 (Creation)

Level of description

Item

Extent and medium

1 f.

Context area

Name of creator

Biographical history

Kyffin Williams, artist, was born in Llangefni, Anglesey, 9 May 1918. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and articled to the land agents, Yale and Hardcastle, Pwllheli, 1936-1939. He served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers from 1937 to 1941, but on failing an army medical examination because of his epilepsy he was advised to take up art by his doctor. Hence in 1941 he entered the Slade School of Fine Art, and from 1944 to 1973 was Senior Art Master at Highgate School in London. In 1968 he was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to record the Welsh community in Patagonia.

He was elected President of the Royal Cambrian Academy from 1969 to 1976 and again from 1992; an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1970, and a Royal Academician in 1974. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the University Colleges of Swansea (1989), Bangor (1991) and Aberystwyth (1992). In 1973 he was made an Honorary MA and in 1993 an Honorary Doctor of Letters of the University of Wales. Other honours bestowed on him were the OBE (1982), the Cymmrodorion Medal (1991), and a KBE (2000).

Exhibitions of his work have been held at the following London Galleries: Colnaghi's, the Leicester Galleries, Thackeray Gallery; also the Howard Roberts and Albany Galleries, Cardiff; Tegfryn Gallery, Menai Bridge; and other provincial venues.

His work is found in the collections of the Arts Council of Great Britain, National Museum of Wales, National Library of Wales, Welsh Arts Council, Royal Academy, Contemporary Art Society, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, art galleries of Newport, Swansea, Hereford, Coventry, the Chantrey Bequest and very many private collections. A major retrospective exhibition was staged at the National Museum of Wales in 1987.

Kyffin Williams's autobiography, Across the Straits, was published in 1973, and his second autobiographical volume, A Wider Sky, in 1991. Other works include Boyo Ballads (1995), Portraits (1996), The land and the sea (1998), Drawings (2001), Cutting images (2002), and Gwladfa Kyffin / Kyffin in Patagonia (2004). Since 1974 he lived and worked at Pwllfanogl on the edge of the Menai Straits below Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, Anglesey. He died in September 2006.

Name of creator

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Roger Jones Co; Colwyn Bay; Purchased at auction, lot 148 (with ff. 41-44); 2 December 2017; 99817036902419.

Content and structure area

Scope and content

A letter, 13 August 1987, from Kyffin Williams, Pwllfanogl, Llanfairpwll, to John Harry Fisher Evans, Cardiff, illustrated with a self-portrait sketch in ink of the artist holding a shotgun. Williams discusses his ability with a shotgun and the recent award of a life peerage to his friend Nicholas Edwards (subsequently Baron Crickhowell).

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Conditions governing access

Conditions governing reproduction

Kyffin Williams copyright held by the National Library of Wales.

Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Language and script notes

English.

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

Finding aids

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

Related units of description

For John Fisher Evans's letter, dated 11 August 1987, to which this is a reply, see NLW, Kyffin Williams Archive A1/19/122.

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Note

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Alternative identifier(s)

Alma system control number

99817036902419

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Physical storage

  • Text: NLW MS 24044D, f. 40