Artist: will roberts

Will Roberts was a shy, sensitive introvert who was born in Ruabon near Wrexham in North Wales before, at the age of about seven, he moved to Neath near Swansea. His father , who worked on the railway, got a transfer to South Wales but throughout his life Will Roberts was continually trying to recapture his childhood memories in rural Wales. Roberts landscape is that of the farm yard and he uses Tyn y Waun Farm in Cimla as a substitute for Bryan Mulan Farm in Denbigh , the farm of his youth.

His work catalogues the everyday life of the rural labourer but is depicted with sensitivity and usually has the subject turned away from the viewer focused on the task in hand . We particularly like the restricted range of earthy pigments Will Roberts uses in his work to which he then adds Venetian red, Prussian Blue and a vibrant orange to highlight the central theme of the piece.

If you ask anyone about Will Roberts the reply will usually be ‘Yes, I like his work; was he the untrained artist who became the pupil of Josef Herman ?’

We had never sought to see if this was true, so we decided to find out if this is in fact true or just a fable . So let us look at Will Roberts life and artistic training . Born in 1910 , so a year older than Herman , he was far from untrained being knowledgeable in art history and contemporary art he attended Swansea School of Art from 1928 -32 and during the war Bath and Nuneaton Schools of Art when time permitted. His early work shows some similarity with Hermans work but they didn’t meet until 1945 and Herman was at this time unknown and had not established an international reputation.

Herman had spent time with the Belgian Expressionists and there is no doubt that his experiences influenced Roberts . They shared a studio for a period of time and perhaps the most important thing that Herman passed on to Roberts was confidence .

So, Roberts was not untrained, was not Hermans pupil and should be viewed as a great Welsh artist in his own right , quietly recording the labourers , both men and women , as they went about their business.

Will Roberts passion was for painting but after the war he took over a jewellery shop in Neath and ran it until he retired. In a strange way he reminds me of another great Welsh artist and another man who gave up the call of London and the rest of the world and settled for the place he loved- Wales. That being Roger Cecil who is another iconic painter who wanted to quietly depict his nation in the way he thought right . Both men have left us a body of work that is instantly recognisable to all and has continued to grow in popularity over the recent decades.