Harry Charles Tim (b. 1956) is a fine art painter based in Stratford-on-Avon. In a past life, he was a soldier in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. After finishing his service, he immigrated to Germany, where he initially became a dealer in antiques and art before himself becoming an artist.
A couple of weeks ago on a trip into Aberystwyth, Justin walked past Oriel y Bont – and an artwork in the window really stood out for him. He went over for a closer look and found that it was painted by Welsh artist, Lilwen Lewis.
When he returned home, he told me about it, and we looked online to see if we could find any information about her and discover any more of her works.
Lilwen is local to New Quay, a Mid-Wales harbour town 20 miles south of Aberystwyth. She studied art for 5 years; first to Carmarthen School of Art then on to Swansea School of Art to study Painting & Stained Glass and finally Cardiff College of Art, graduating from Cardiff University. She returned to live and work in New Quay after her studies and a five year stint teaching Art and Craft at St Clears Secondary School. She’s a member of Cardigan Art Society.
My inspiration comes from the landscape around my home walking through woods, farms and down to the seafront among the fishing boats. Observing the changing moods of the landscape and the people.
I like experimenting with different mediums and techniques. Going from realism through to semi abstraction. You never know how work will turn out or what it will lead to.
Since moving to Ceredigion, we’ve discovered so many incredible Welsh artists. The latest in that line is Ifor Pritchard. I adore his expressive, impasto style; thick strokes of oil paint confidently applied with brush and knife to the canvas.
Pritchard (1940-2010) was a painter whose subject matter consisted mainly of the slate quarrying industry that he saw around him growing up in Carmel, Gwynedd in North Wales. He created portraits of the quarrymen (at work and at the pub), the quarry managers, the work horses, the machinery.
For many years, he worked as an art teacher mainly at Ysgol Sir Huw Owen in Caernarfon from where he retired in 1992. It wasn’t until 2007 that he mounted his first exhibition (of 30 works) in Glynllifon, south of Caernarfon.
Memories are my inspiration. Memories of a childhood in the village of Carmel in the ’40s. This is a village situated within a stone’s throw of the Dyffryn Nantlle slate quarries and was, therefore, a village that was almost totally dependent on the slate. After a lifetime of producing and teaching art, memories now transport me back to those early days. It is an endeavour to depict an extremely claustrophobic life that was, in the main, based on the quarry and the chapel. I am only interested in the human aspect of the industry. I have slate, but not the dust, in my veins.
I love going out for a walk around dusk, when people have turned on their lights, but haven’t yet drawn the curtains. You can get a sneaky look inside and see how they’ve furnished and decorated their homes. I think that’s why I was first attracted to the works of this week’s artist.
Mary Ellen Best (1809-1891) was an English watercolour artist, primarily concentrating on English – and later on, German – domestic interior scenes. She was born in York, the daughter of Dr Charles Best, a physician who worked at the York Lunatic Asylum (now Bootham Park Hospital). Her mother was Mary Norcliffe Dalton, the daughter of a Yorkshire landowner. She was brought up, along with her younger sister, Rosamond, in Little Blake Street (now Duncombe Place) near the west end of York Minster.
Best showed artistic promise from a young age, having art lessons at boarding school during her teenage years. As a young woman, she produced and sold many paintings and also exhibited widely.
As well as her own home, Best painted a number of studies of the Norcliffe family’s East Yorkshire home, Langton Park. There are many well-to-do town & country house drawing rooms, sitting rooms, dining rooms, music rooms etc. But it’s the ‘below stairs’ views that I find most interesting; the servant’s quarters, the kitchens and the more modest cottage interiors.
After the death of her parents and grandmother, from whom she inherited handsome sums each time, Best’s artistic output decreased. After she married German schoolmaster, Johann Anton Phillip Sary in 1840, the number of paintings she produced lessened even further until they virtually dried up after giving birth to and raising a son and daughter.
In 1985, a biography entitled The World of Mary Ellen Best was written by Caroline Davidson. In it, she calculated that Best produced over 1,500 paintings in her lifetime. Copies of the book are available at Abe Books and Amazon.
You can also find many more details about life on the Women of York blog and essay, Negotiating Identity: Mary Ellen Best and The Status of Female Victorian Artists.
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