The 20th century Welsh landscape painter Charles Wyatt Warren is to be celebrated in an exhibition at Panter and Hall gallery in London in September. It will be the first West End exhibition of this important and until recently, neglected Welsh artist.
Painting the Snowdonian landscape during the 20th Century, Wyatt Warren was a contemporary of the more famous Sir Kyffin Williams – the artist credited with developing and establishing what has become a distinctive north Wales style. Wyatt Warren’s development followed that of Williams, beginning in the 1950s with a solid traditional brushstroke, gradually moving in the seventies and eighties towards the sculpted, palette knife impastos that made Kyffin Williams famous.
It would be easy but unfair to pass Wyatt Warren off as an acolyte or copyist of Kyffin Williams. Instead he is best viewed as a contemporary colleague in sculpting what has become a north Wales artistic signature. His earlier works are more classical in feel, often featuring silver birch trees, shamelessly included to demonstrate his technical ability with paint.
Born in Caernarfon in 1908, Wyatt Warren attended the local grammar school before completing external studies through London University. He went on to enjoy a successful career in the Finance department at Caernarfon County Council, painting in his spare time. Largely self-taught, Wyatt Warren began painting at home as a hobby, selling his work in local galleries and cafes for only £10-15 a piece.
Given his place in relation to Williams it is perhaps not too surprising that there is such little information about him on the internet. A Google search yields very few results containing information about his life or work. His name appears in compendiums of Welsh artists, but there is very little else besides. This scarcity of information belies the growing interest in his work. Ironically, Kyffin Williams’ fame – which once eclipsed Wyatt Warren’s work – is now helping drive an interest in his paintings. As price tags attached to Williams’ work grow increasingly expensive, those wishing to collect 20th Century Welsh art are having to look elsewhere.
Wyatt Warren may well be the perfect candidate for these collectors. Not only was he a contemporary of Kyffin Williams, but he was highly prolific, producing 20-40 pictures each year and notching up over fifty solo shows in his lifetime, mainly in the UK but also in the US and Canada. His rich impasto oils have been shown at the National Eisteddfod, the Royal Cambrian Academy, the Denbighshire Art Society and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. He had a solo show at the London Welsh Association in 1960. Work was commissioned from him by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in Brussels and University College of North Wales, Bangor.
Wyatt Warren had a somewhat smoother application with the palette knife than Kyffin. Many of his paintings, especially from his later period, seem to evoke the distortive effect of rain against the window, something he’d be no stranger to living and working in northern Wales.
Wyatt Warren also had a keen interest in public life, contributing papers to the Gwynedd Archives which documented Royal Visits to Wales, including papers relating to the investiture of two Princes of Wales (Edward and Charles). A keen supporter of the arts in north Wales, he was a founding member and secretary of the North Wales Group, a member of the Caernarfon Art Group and the Paddington Art Society. He was also a founder member of the Caernarfon School of Welsh Landscape Painters.
Do you have any information about Charles Wyatt Warren? Both the gallery and the author would be glad to know more about him. If anyone knew him, has any information about him, or owns any of his paintings please get in touch using the comments form below.
Tags: 20th Century art, Charles Wyatt Warren, impasto, North Wales Style, Panter & Hall gallery, Sir Kyffin Williams, Welsh landscape
I have a Charles Wyatt Warren painting of the bridge at Beddgelert. I bought it in a little gallery in Caernarfon while on holiday in about 1964, as a present for my mother. She had it for years and I inherited it when she died in 1999. It is a small oil which cost me 8 guineas, eqivalent to about £144 in 2012 prices. In the exhibition, there was another Warren, which I preferred, called “Above Nant Gwynant”. However it cost 14 guineas, which I could not afford. The gallery also had some art by Kyffin Williams including a large semi-abstract rather expressionist canvas called ‘War machine’ or something like that. So Warren and Williams were being sold together, though the Williams pictures were ten times more expensive. A schoolfriend of mine, whose father was a Congregational minister, originally from Dowlais, showed me proudly a Warren which his parents had in their home in London in about 1967. It was a large painting of a whitewashed house, viewed from the end. So Warren was quite well-known and was being bought in Wales in the 1960s.
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I am now the proud owner of a Wyatt Warren I inherited the picture Mynedd Mawr from my late mother last year. I once met the artist when studying for my scout artist proficiency badge c.1968 ? And went to his house in Caernarfon to meet him. I remember he showqed me around his gallery and we discussed paiting styles etc. Not sure when my parents acquired the picture itself it has a price tag of £82 on the reverse but believe we have had it since the 60′s ? My dad used to also work for Gwynedd CC so may have met him at work.
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Myself and my husband are very big fans of the work of Charles Wyatt-Warren, owning a beautiful oil on board of a farm in Anglesey, Wales. I have to say that after viewing several original peices of his work and after scouring auction sites, I feel his work, even at current market value is amazing value for money. I also feel that despite many of these paintings being produced from the 50′s onwards, the way in which they were created is so special that they remain modern in appearance and can be enjoyed by all generations, including young couples such as ourselves. I feel our painting is of exceptional quality and is a sound investment into Welsh art.
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