Oriel Môn is delighted to be launching a new exhibition in Oriel Kyffin Williams on 16 July, depicting Kyffin’s time in London, where he worked as a teacher while also establishing himself as an artist.
Kyffin Williams lived in London for thirty years after joining Highgate School to teach art in 1944. This varied exhibition will take you on a tour around the city, highlighting his experiences in and around Highgate, his homes and studios, his development as an ‘artist of promise’ and some of the friendships and connections that he forged during his ‘London years’.
This special exhibition has been curated by David Smith, who also spent three decades at Highgate, but teaching physics – encountering Kyffin for the first time via dramatic paintings in oil that hung on the walls of the then smoke-filled staff room. David stated: “While much is known about the last thirty or so years of Kyffin’s life once he moved to Pwllfanogl, the story of his ‘London years’ is perhaps less familiar. This exhibition will attempt to redress the balance a little”.
David’s long-standing relationship with Oriel Môn began in 2007 when he visited Llangefni to carry out research in preparation for a lecture about Kyffin. The following year he watched David Meredith, current Chair of the Sir Kyffin Williams Trust, launch a book about the artist (‘Bro a Bywyd’) at the National Library of Wales and subsequently invited him to give a repeat performance at the School. Thus in 2009 was born a series of Annual Highgate Lectures celebrating Kyffin, with the fourteenth having taken place via Zoom in February of this year.
Having retired from teaching in 2014, David now works part-time in the School Archive and led the curation of two centenary exhibitions at Highgate in 2018, one at the school and the other at the nearby Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, which together possibly represented the largest ever display of Kyffin’s work outside of Wales. For his efforts to promote the Kyffin cause far away from Anglesey, David was invited to join The Sir Kyffin Williams Trust in 2017.
Items by Kyffin and some of his contemporaries from Oriel Môn’s own collection will be on show, alongside loans from Highgate School and national and provincial galleries and museums throughout the UK, together with a few unseen works from private collections. Research is an ongoing process, and if you have any art works or stories relating to Kyffin’s time in London, we would love to hear from you.
The exhibition opens on Friday evening, 15 July at 7pm and runs until 29 January 2023. There will be a warm welcome to all.
Oriel Môn is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm and admission is free.
Ends 4 July 2022