Tea Table Still Life, Watercolour and Pencil, John Bromfield Rees (1912-1965), 1940

This lovely watercolour and pencil sketch of a table set for tea has a charming soft palette and structure. Signed and dated March 1940 (iii/40) by the artist.

Signed and dated `iii/40`, watercolor and pencil
Dimensions: 65 x 51.5 cm.
Provenance: Artist's family

John Bromfield Gay Rees, known as “Brom” was born in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. At the age of 13 he won first prize in the drawing and design category at National Eisteddfod junior section. Aged 14 he enrolled at School of Art and Craft, Llanelli, where the headmaster D E H Pratt encouraged him to show at Swansea public gallery. Pratt recommended him to Royal Academy Schools where he was a brilliant student from enrolment at the end of 1932, and a friend of Alfred Janes and William Scott. Illness in 1935 prompted surgery which led to a nervous disorder which would affect the rest of his life. Although his work was praised by painter and lecturer Sir William Rothenstein and widely appreciated by other artists of his time, Rees was now confined to his home and did not show along with many of his contemporaries, who would go on to win creative accolades and patrons.

In the early 1940s he worked frenetically on a series of stream-of-consciousness watercolours which exhausted him. The critic Jack Wood Palmer became a supporter, arranging for Rees to visit Paris in 1948, where Cubism made a great impact. In 1951 Arts Council included Rees’ work in a Festival of Britain Contemporary British Painting touring show. In 1989 Michael Parkin Fine Art held a tribute show.

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