Gwilym Arifor Prichard (né Pritchard; 4 March 1931 – 7 June 2015) was a Welsh landscape painter.

Early life

Born in the village of Llanystumdwy, near Criccieth, Gwynedd, he studied at Bangor Normal College (1951-3) before moving on to Birmingham College of Art, before becoming a teacher in Anglesey. He married fellow artist Claudia Williams in 1953, and altered the spelling of his surname when he discovered that there was another painter of the same name.^[1] Their son, Ceri Pritchard, is a painter.^[2]

Style

Noted for his "dramatic and colourful" depictions of "dense, craggy, often formidable landscapes" with "a three-dimensional quality",^[1] Prichard's paintings "managed to display his joy in the richness and beauty of his native land".^[3] He started to become successful during the 1960s, and in 1970 he was elected to the Royal Cambrian Academy.^[3]

Professional life

After leaving paid employment in the early 1970s, he became a full-time painter. In the early 1980s the couple began travelling through Europe, living for periods in Skiathos, Greece and Rochefort-en-Terre, Brittany, before settling in Pembrokeshire in 1999.^[4] Prichard was awarded the silver medal by the Société Académique des Arts-Sciences-Lettres de Paris in 1995, and was an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales.^[3] In later years he was regarded as the senior living Welsh landscape painter.^[5] A major exhibition of his work was held in Cardiff in 2013,^[6] and a monograph detailing his work, A Lifetime's Gazing, was published the same year.^[7][4]

Death

Prichard died at his home in Tenby June 7, 2015.^[3]

References