Christopher Williams (Welsh artist)

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Christopher Williams

Self-portrait
Birth name Christopher Williams
Born January 7, 1873(1873-01-07)
Maesteg, Wales
Died July 19, 1934 (aged 61)
London, England
Nationality Welsh
Field Painter

Christopher David Williams (1873 – 1934) was a Welsh artist.

He was born in Maesteg, Wales. His father Evan Williams intended him to be a doctor, but he disliked the idea. A visit to the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in 1892, where he spent some hours in front of Frederick Leighton's "Perseus and Andromeda," revealed a new world to him. He left the Gallery with a firm decision that he would be an artist.

He studied first in Neath under Mr. Kerr and later at the Royal College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools.

In 1902 his "Paolo and Francesca" was hung in the Royal Academy and his portrait of his father in 1903. These were the first of 18 paintings exhibited there.

His portrait of Sir Alfred Lyall exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1910 brought him an invitation from the Royal Society of British Artists to join their ranks and he exhibited 37 paintings in their Gallery over the next decade. He also exhibited in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters until 1930.

In 1911, he received a commission from King George V to work on a commemorative painting of the Investiture of Edward, Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle. As well as attending the ceremony, he visited Buckingham Palace, where the Royal Family sat for him in order to complete the detail of the picture. He completed two versions of this painting.

Among his portraits were those of Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George, Sir John Williams, Sir John Rhys, Sir Henry Jones, Sir John Morris Jones, Dr Stanton Coit, Sir Frederick Mills, John Hinds MP. He painted the first of three portraits of Lloyd George in the summer of 1911. Lloyd George described him as "one of the most gifted artists Wales has produced".

During the First World War, he painted the Welsh Charge at Mametz Wood, now in the Welsh National Museum.

He painted three scenes from the Mabinogion. Ceridwen (1910) and Branwen (1915) are in the collection of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. Blodeuwedd (1930) is at the Newport Museum and Art Gallery.

He painted many landscapes in Wales, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, Morocco and Holland. Amongst his landscapes is "The Red Dress" at the National Museum of Wales and "Holidays - Village Girls at Llangrannog" in the collection of the National Library of Wales.

In the post-war years and until his death he did much to stimulate an interest in art in Wales and was a frequent adjudicator at the National Eisteddfod, a member of the Arts Committee of the National Museum of Wales and of the Council of Honorable Society of Cymmrodorion.

Plaque at Christopher Williams' birthplace on Commercial Street, Maesteg, Photo by Sarah Rabagliati
Plaque at Christopher Williams' birthplace on Commercial Street, Maesteg, Photo by Sarah Rabagliati

He had a great love for humanity and deep sympathy with the downtrodden and oppressed. Shortly before his death in 1934 he presented to the Salvation Army a large picture of the Thames Embankment scene at night which he called "Why?"

In 1973 an exhibition was organised on the centenary of his birth at the National Museum of Wales, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Maesteg Town Hall.

He married Emily Appleyard and together they had two sons, Gwyn and Ivor. His second son Ivor Williams was also a Welsh artist. He was the brother-in-law of fellow artist Fred Appleyard

His works are in the collections of the National Museum of Wales, National Library of Wales, Royal Collection, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Newport Museum, Parc Howard Museum and Art Gallery, Carmarthenshire County Museum, Maesteg Town Hall, Bridgend County Borough Council, Caernarfon Council, Harewood House, Aberystwyth University, National Liberal Club, Lloyd George Museum, Ffyone Mansion, Bangor University, Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Froebel College, Dulwich College, Llandovery College, Neath Port Talbot College, Bradford Museums Galleries and Heritage.

Contents

[edit] Paintings / External links

Deffroad Cymru, the Awakening of Wales (1911)
Deffroad Cymru, the Awakening of Wales (1911)

[edit] Compositions

  • Branwen The subject is from the Mabinogion. The beautiful Branwen was a sister of the King of Britain and married the King of Ireland at a time then these two countries were at war. She died in Anglesey: 'and Branwen looked towards Ireland and towards the Island of the Mighty, to see if she could descry them. "Alas", said she, "woe is me that I was ever born; two islands have been destroyed because of me!" " The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1915. In the collection of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea.
  • The Welsh at Mametz Wood The Charge of the Welsh Division at Mametz Wood, 11 July 1916, part of the Somme offensive. Painted at the request of the Secretary of State for War, David Lloyd George. Christopher Williams visited the scene in November 1916 and later made studies from a soldier supplied for the purpose. In the collection of the National Museum of Wales, to whom it was presented by Sir Archibald Mitchelson, Bart. 1920.
  • Spring Spring was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1908.
  • Blodeuwedd This subject is from the Mabinogion. Gwydion and Math "by charms and illusions" formed a wife for Llew Llaw Gyffes: "so they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadowsweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name Blodeuwedd". In the collection of the Newport Museum and Art Gallery (gift of the Artists wife, Mrs. Emily Williams, 1937).
  • Deffroad Cymru, the Awakening of Wales The painting shows a female nude emerging from the jaws of a sea-dragaon, a kind of Celtic Birth of Venus. Preliminary drawings of this are in the sketchbook that Christopher Williams used at Caernarfon Castle in 1911 when recording the Investiture of the Prince of Wales. This subject was thus a nationalistic allegory that was both contemporary and of special relevance to the artist.
  • Ceridwen Ceridwen is a subject is from the Mabinogion. The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1910. In the collection of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea.
Portrait of David Lloyd George (1911)
Portrait of David Lloyd George (1911)

[edit] Portraits

The Red Dress (1917)
The Red Dress (1917)

[edit] Landscapes

  • The Red Dress The artist's wife at Barmouth Island, 1917. Exhibited in Art in Wales, The Early Years, 1900-1956, National Museum of Wales, 1969. In the Collection of the National Museum of Wales (purchased at the Christopher Williams Memorial Exhibition, Palser Gallery, London, 1935), and currently in the Office of the Secretary of State for Wales in Whitehall.
  • The Casbah, Tangiers This picture is one of numerous landscapes painted during a three month visit to Spain and Morocco in Spring 1914.
  • Holidays - Village Girls at Llangrannog Painting in collection of National Library of Wales.
Holidays - Village Girls at Llangrannog (1915)
Holidays - Village Girls at Llangrannog (1915)

[edit] References