• Analysis
Kyffin Williams immersive exhibition opens at the National Library of Wales
The Profiad Kyffin Experience, an immersive exhibition of Sir Kyffin Williams' work, opens at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth on Wednesday 18 November, animating hundreds of the artist's pictures and setting them to music.
Hundreds of pictures by Sir Kyffin Williams, held in the store of the National Library of Wales, have been animated and set to music for the Profiad Kyffin Experience, a bilingual immersive exhibition opening in Aberystwyth on Wednesday 18 November. It will stay at the library for three to five years, and advance booking is highly recommended.
A show in three rooms
The show is staged in three rooms close to one of the main doors, with views over the town and the sea. It is smaller and more intimate than comparable shows of Van Gogh, Cézanne and Hockney works: only 10 people are allowed in at a time, and entry is free.
- •In the first room, the singer Sir Bryn Terfel, himself an avid collector of Williams' work, introduces Williams' story.
- •In the second room, visitors can sit or stand as landscapes, seascapes and blocks of colour swirl around walls, floor and ceilings, accompanied by a Welsh chamber-folk string trio.
- •The third room holds an electronic version of a Williams self-portrait that visitors can touch to get an impression of the thickness of his paint.
Bringing new audiences to a Welsh master
Morfudd Bevan, the art curator at the library, said one of the key aims was to bring Williams, who died in 2006, and the library to new audiences, including younger people. She said his work romanticised Wales and encapsulated the idea of hiraeth, a Welsh word roughly meaning homesickness for a place that no longer exists or perhaps never did.
Kyffin is one of Wales's most important artists and he was embraced by the public.
The words are Bevan's, and they frame why the library chose an immersive treatment for the painter.
Designing around the paint's texture
Dennis Outten, chief executive of Focal Studios, the main designers of the show, said a central challenge was projecting Williams' landscapes without losing his texture. The team spent months living with the paintings from the stores before building the show.
We felt the pressure. You want to be true to his life, his work, his methods, and he's not around to give us any feedback.
Outten described Williams as a cheeky chap, an amazing raconteur and an educator, and said the team believed he would have liked their approach.
A library bond stretching back to 1950
The library's connection to the artist began in 1950, when it bought an oil painting of Cadair Idris from him for £15 while he was teaching art in London. Bevan said the painting would now be worth tens of thousands of pounds. Williams later moved back to his birthplace, Ynys Môn (Anglesey) in north Wales, and often visited the library, where staff would have tea with him.
On his death he left his estate to the library, making it the largest holder of his work in the world:
- •200 oil paintings
- •300 original prints
- •more than 1,000 pieces on paper
The works are kept in a storeroom. Visitors can make an appointment to view the pieces, or have them brought to a reading room with easels, and can also see his palette, paint-spattered phone and a pair of boots. The Profiad Kyffin Experience opens to the public on Wednesday 18 November.
