Evelyn Williams 'Men by the Sea'
oil on canvas  .  100 x 135 cm


ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

Evelyn Williams was born in 1929 and died in 2012. Her tender, intimate and emotional paintings are concerned with the subtleties and complexities of relationships and the human predicament. Dealing with the intimate connection and profound solitude of existence, taking the viewer on a profound journey from womb to tomb. 

Williams trained at St Martin’s School of Art from the age of 15 and then the Royal College of Art working alongside the older, largely male students, many of them soldiers returning from service in the second world war. Despite failing health she continued painting right up to her death at the age of 83. Williams proved difficult for some to categorise during her life time, but is regarded, along with friends such as Paula Rego, as having forged a path for female artists. She later founded a trust in her name which has done modest but important work to support artists, particularly women, and the practice of drawing. As Huon Mallalieu stated “Her work deserves to be as well-known as those of her fellow 1961 John Moores prize-winners, Blake, Blow, Hockney, Kitaj, Kossoff, McWilliam and Uglow.”