| Galleries » Modern British Paintings 1900-1950 » Bromfield Rees |
| Bromfield Rees (1912-1965) was a painter and draughtsman,
with the full name John Bromfield Gay Rees. He was born in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire.
While suffering from acute eczema as a small boy he developed an artistic talent, so that
aged 13 he won first prize in the drawing and design category at the National
Eisteddfod junior section. Aged 14, he enrolled at the 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 Academv Schools where he was a brilliant student from enrolment
at the end of 1932, a friend of Alfred Janes and William Scott. Illness in 1935 prompted surgery and this led to a nervous disorder which affected the rest of his life. Although his work was praised by Sir William Rothenstein, Rees was now confined to his home and did not show. In the early 1940s he worked frenetically on a series of' stream-of-conciousness 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, the Arts Council included Rees' work in a Festival of Britain Contemporary - British Painting touring show. He lived finally at Richmond, Surrey, lying in Brompton Hospital of cancer of the lungs. In 1989, Michael Parkin Fine Art held a tribute show. |
