Gwilym Prichard RCA
(1931-2015)

Gwilym Pritchard was born in 1931 in a small village on the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales to, the school master , his father Hugh Pritchard.
He loved the environment ,  being 'out doors' and played by the local river Dwyfor. Indeed , one of his early memories was of catching trout in the river and meeting the retired Prime Minister Lloyd George who had lived nearby .
He excelled at art during has schooling but his education appears to have been haphazard and he left school having done his O Levels and did his national service which was cut short due to illness. He was encouraged into a career in Art by local painters Kyffin Williams and Charles Tunnicliffe , but it was a local young lady called Claudia Williams that gave him the greatest motivation as she had won a prize to attend Chelsea Art School and more to the point he had fallen in love .
Prichard studied art at Bangor college and in 1953 he studied in Birmingham living together with Williams in digs. The following year he took up a position teaching crafts at Llangenfni County Secondary School where he stayed for 11 years living nearby in Beaumaris raising a family with Claudia. Interestingly, another great welsh artist Ernest Zobole was the Art teacher at the same school and while neither owned a car they came to an arrangement with the heads of Maths at the school - Francis George Fisher - who became a dramatist , novelist and translator. He was converting a barn into a theatre space and in payment for the use of his car to go on painting trips they painted the sets for his productions.
In 1959  both Gwilym Prichard and Claudia Williams were given exposure in a Welsh television programme about art and Prichard was elected Associate Member of the Royal Cambrian Academy in the same year, becoming a full member in 1963.During the 1950s and 60s he exhibited in both Wales and in London with the Chelsea New Arts Gallery and later at Heals Gallery in Tottenham Court road.
In 1965 Prichard took up a post at Ratcliffe college Leicestershire which proved to be a failure and returned home to Wales after a year , he turned to alcohol and in 1973 moved away from Anglesey to Herefordshire finally being admitted to rehab in 1974 from when on he became teetotal. Following the children's schooling Gwilym and Claudia returned to Wales living in a number of locations before setting out on a seventeen year tour of Europe living in Greece and France and painting in ever bolder palettes before returning to Wales and settling in Tenby.
Martin Tinney Gallery in Cardiff continued to represent both artists . Sadly Gwilym Pritchard died in 2015 and is a loss to the Art World but Claudia continues to paint her fabulous beach and homely scenes which are so distinctive and warm.
 

Read our BLOG ..........scroll down the page to the date 3rd January 2017 and  get the full story about the early painting we currently have on offer.