Sir Kyffin’s Gift To A Loyal Taxi Driver Fetches £12,000 At Auction
October 26 2009
A painting by Sir Kyffin Williams used to pay a taxi driver who acted as his chauffeur fetched £12,000 at a North Wales auction on Saturday.
Sir Kyffin’s epilepsy prevented him from driving and he relied on Hugh Roberts to take him all over North Wales.
On one of these trips Sir Kyffin went to Caerau, near Llanfairynghornwy, on Anglesey, to paint one of the whitewashed farmsteads.
Anglesey artist Sir Kyffin, who died of cancer aged 88 in September 2006, presented the oil-on-board to Mr Roberts as a mark of gratitude for his loyalty.
The painting, dating from the late 1950s or early 60s, had been expected to fetch £10,000 in the biannual sale of Welsh Art and Artists staged by Colwyn Bay auctioneers Rogers Jones Co.
The work had remained in the family of the late Mr Roberts, whose grocery and taxi business was located close to the artist’s then home in Abererch, near Pwllheli.
It was sold to a buyer in South Wales via a commissioned bid.
The most expensive Sir Kyffin painting in the sale was an oil on canvas, depicting a Venetian waterfront scene with a tug boat and Lowryesque figure on the quayside that sold for £12,500.
The artist gave the work to Mrs Jean Reddaway in Rome in 1952.
It was then gifted by Mrs Reddaway to her sister in 1958, remaining in the same family for more than 50 years.
A North Wales businessman snapped up this piece on Saturday.
The sale also included a number of watercolours and prints by Sir Kyffin.
The best of these was a watercolour-and-pencil drawing of a Welsh farmstead below a hill with cattle grazing. It fetched £4,000 from a West-Wales based buyer.
Auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones said: “People were prepared to spend money and it was upbeat.
“We had 80 chairs all occupied with people standing at the back, so there were 100-plus people here as well as those making internet bids.”
Source; WalesOnline.co.uk
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