This painting, after exhaustive research, was determined to be a likely copy of a work by Kyffin Williams.
In the Winter of 2020, L.S. wrote to me that he had purchased a painting at 19 x 15.5” which on the back said, “Attributed to Kyffin Williams 1918-2006, British.” He had found it for $40 in a junk shop in upstate New York. He sent photos to me at the time and asked if I thought it was by Mr. Williams, great national artist of Wales. Recently, a U.S. Auction House sold a Williams seascape estimated between $13K and $20K; Sotheby’s sold a street scene for $50K.
The search I undertook is described; and this research can be done with any painting that might be original to a very fine artist.
First, research the background of the artist: Mr. Williams is regarded as the defining presence in 20th century Welsh art, and he might have been saddened that the back says “British” and not “Welsh” (our first clue that the painting is not original – anyone who had any contact with Mr. Williams’s oeuvre would have written Welsh). Although he taught in England for 30 years as a painting master, he retired at Pwllfanogl, Llanfairpwll, on the Isle of Anglesey, near the Menai Straits overlooking Snowdonia, close to his birthplace.
He became a professional artist late in life; in the British Army he suffered from an epileptic fit and was told that he should continue painting instead.
Later, having won the Winston Churchill Fellowship, he traveled to Patagonia to paint the Welsh settlement there of Y Wladfa. He was awarded the OBE, and then knighted in 1999.
A major selection of his works is held at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. He wrote that no other country “touches the mood … of melancholy that is in most Welshmen, a melancholy derived from the dark hills, the heavy clouds, and the enveloping sea mist.” This is also a clue: how the artist reflected on what he painted tells us that he loved the ominous grays of that Welsh sky; he admired the working class grit and industrialism of the place. (Here’s another clue: the way an artist signs: this egalitarian artist signed with his initials throughout his career.) Mr. Williams died a wealthy man; he gave much art to charitable causes in Wales.
He knew the Welsh landscape so well that when he painted a mountain, he knew what was on the other side; painting was not making images, sympathy was his creative process; to communicate, one must understand and feel the image. He said obsession was a greater asset than talent; he was prolific in all weathers with a palette knife. (Here is another clue: a palette knife gives a painting a broad, thick area of paint.)
L.S.’s painting has some of those hallmarks: a Welsh industrial scene, certain colors of the gray cold climate, the hard edge of stone and a palette knife technique. And indeed, signed with just KW.
How to authenticate this painting? Mr. Williams sold through galleries; museums collected his works. I researched the galleries: I tried Oriel Ynysmon, in Mr. Williams’s town of Llangefni, and emailed a photo. They told me to get in touch with the Rogers Jones Auction House in Wales. A number of galleries once sold his paintings, and three were particularly prominent, the Tegfryn Gallery in Menai Bridge (since 1968), the Thackeray Gallery in London (since 1975), and the Albany Gallery in Cardiff (since 1975). Mary Yapp, the owner of the Albany, acted as his agent. Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw in Llanbedrog sold. But these galleries no longer sell regularly, and most colleagues are now gone. His work is in many galleries throughout Britain and overseas, with the majority of the thousands of pictures which he painted during his lifetime in private collections. Galleries or Auction Houses are the way to go; museums usually can’t offer opinions.
A retrospective to honor the centenary of his birth (1918) in 2018 was held at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth: the director was Lona Mason, so I found her and emailed a photo; another lead: David Wynn Meredith chairs the Sir Kyffin Williams Trust. These are the experts that got me close to answering questions of authenticity. Everyone said to write directly to Ben Rogers Jones, Auctioneer, Rogers Jones & Co, Cardiff, Wales. Go to the country of origin and find the expert who sells.
Ben was kind enough to look at L.S.’s painting; Ben sent me back a largely identical painting he had sold. Ben said L.S.’s was a copy, but to make sure he’d have the painting sent to him.
I contrasted the two paintings: L.S.’s lacks the grit of the other painting. L.S.’s lacks the depth. L.S.’s lacks the subtle gradation of hue and value (depth of color). Mr. Williams painted to evoke emotion, L.S.’s painting lacks emotion!
If you think you have an original painting, see if you can find the same image in a museum or sold at auction. If you do, you are 80% of the way to certainty that you have a copy. (But not always, as artists do make oil studies!)
Dr. Elizabeth Stewart’s “Ask the Gold Digger” column appears Mondays in the News-Press.
Written after her father’s COVID-19 diagnosis, Dr. Stewart’s book “My Darlin’ Quarantine: Intimate Connections Created in Chaos” is a humorous collection of five “what-if” short stories that end in personal triumphs over present-day constrictions. It’s available at Chaucer’s in Santa Barbara.
