Sir William Samuel Henry Llewellyn PRA, RBA, RI

(British, 1858-1941)

Digging for Bait, Skilly

Footnotes

Provenance
with Alex Fraser Gallery, Vancouver
Private collection, USA

The present lot is an interesting early work from an artist best known as a Society portraitist. Born in Cirencester, Llewellyn's early artistic training took place at the National Art Training School under Sir Edward John Poynter, PRA (British, 1836-1919), before a spell in Paris in the atelier of Jules Lefebvre (French, 1834-1912), among others.

Llewellyn's early exhibited works show an interest in landscape and plein air painting; while he is listed with a London address, Llewellyn clearly travelled widely, producing work in Walberswick (1886-7), Newlyn (1888) and St Ives (1892), where there were artists colonies working during this period, and visiting coastal towns such as Whitby (1893-4).

By 1888, when the present lot was painted, most of the first generation of the Newlyn School had settled in and around the West Cornwall town, and the area would have been well known to the wider artistic community, not least through the regular academy exhibitions of Stanhope Forbes, RA (British, 1857-1947). While there is little evidence of Llewellyn's interaction with these artists during the 1880s, the present lot - painted on the northern part of Roskilly beach, which lies to the west of Newlyn - shows a clear affinity with both the technique and choice of subject that this community of artists were to utilise in their work. Here, the artist works in a broad-brush, impressionistic style, described by The Studio as an 'economy of means', retaining 'a regard for certain refinements of the laws of picture-making' (The Studio, 155).

By the early 1900s, Llewellyn worked predominantly as a portrait painter, in a more conservative style, typified by his state portrait of Queen Mary (RA, 1912, no.150). A prolific exhibitor, his work was shown at the Royal Academy from 1884, as well as the Royal Society of British Artists, the Grosvenor Gallery, and the New English Arts Club. He served as President of the Royal Academy from 1928-1938, and as Trustee of the National Gallery 1933–40.