John Elwyn

Davies was born in Adpar, Newcastle Emlyn in rural south Cardiganshire on 20 November 1916. He attended Carmarthen School of Art from 1935 to 1937 and the West of England College of Art in Bristol from 1937 to 1938. He was awarded an exhibition scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London where he trained from 1938 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1947. As a conscientious objector in World War II, he was directed to work on the land – firstly as a forestry worker in the Afan Valley, then from September 1941 in market gardening in a Cardiff Quaker community.

• Illustration — Catalogue and price list for Elwyn's first exhibition, held in 1949 at the Paul Alexander Gallery, London, jointly with Jack Wright. Hand written annotations denote works sold. (Transcription) After a short time working as a graphic designer for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in London, Elwyn moved to Portsmouth, where he taught at the College of Art. In 1949 he began a series of paintings based upon childhood recollections of rural life in Cardiganshire in the 1920s – chapel-going, festivals and funerals. By the 1950s, Elwyn was exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts, at the New English Art Club, and regularly at exhibitions arranged by the Welsh Arts Council. In the early 1950s he made paintings of miners and their surroundings near Pont-Rhyd-y-Fen in the upper Swansea valley, based on his wartime experiences working on the land. His numerous contributions to the annual Pictures for Welsh Schools exhibitions, staged by the Society of Education through Art, which were shown at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, between 1950 and 1968. In 1953 he moved to Winchester, where he taught at the Winchester School of Art. In the same year he made his first illustrations for the Radio Times. Paintings of farm life in Cardiganshire occupied him between 1955 and 1960. In 1956 he was awarded the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod in Aberdare. His illustrations for Shell Guides, commissioned by Kenneth Rowntree, were published in 1958. Between 1960 and 1964, Elwyn worked on paintings that began edging their way towards abstraction. They are based on the seasons and on the growth and felling of trees in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire. Between 1965 and 1969 his paintings drew upon seasonal changes in his garden and the discovery of a world within a world as he examined the inner structures of blooms and seed pods. He staged one-man shows at the Leicester Galleries, London, in 1965 and 1969. In 1970, after ten years of near abstraction, Elwyn returned to direct representation of his beloved Cardiganshire landscape. That year, he was invited to become an honorary member of the Royal Cambrian Academy. His paintings present an idealised and peaceful vision of country life, recording its activities at different times of day and at various seasons. Memory and imagination are the source of his evocative recreations of the Cardiganshire landscape, with secluded villages, lonely farms, cottages, barns and sweeping country lanes receding in sharp perspective towards the horizon. John Elwyn retired from Winchester School of Art in 1976.

Elwyn married the pianist Gillian Butterworth in 1970. His stepchildren were Robin (the composer Robin Stevens) and Louise.