Susan Angharad Williams
Poppies Image
Poppies

"There are so many things that I like or admire here, that it is undoubtedly invidious to name an outstanding work among them, but for me it is the extraordinary still life of Poppies by Susan Angharad Williams. The technical mastery of her painting - just look at that jug - is fully complemented by the meticulously constructed composition, with the flowers echoed in the textiles, and in the shadows and rips of the wallpaper behind. Williams studied at Bath and the Royal College of Art, where she was tutored by Sir Peter Blake and Donald Hamilton Finlay and won the Drawing Prize. On her graduation in 1969 they considered her “one of the two most outstanding students at the college in the last 20 years”, the other being Kitaj. Then she disappeared from the art world, only reappearing in 2006. Her first solo show at Jonathan Cooper was in 2009. The story is as remarkable as the work.

Huon Mallalieu, writer on the Art Market and Collecting for Country Life and The Times.