Acclaimed Welsh artist Kevin Sinnott dies aged 78
Stephen Price
Kevin Sinnott, a defining figure in contemporary Welsh art, has died at his home in Pont-y-rhyl in the Garw Valley at the age of 78.
Born in 1947 in Sarn near Bridgend, to Irish parents, Sinnott trained at Cardiff College of Art, Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, and the Royal College of Art in London.
He graduated in 1974 and spent the 1970s and 1980s establishing his reputation in London, exhibiting at leading galleries including Anne Berthoud, Angela Flowers and Bernard Jacobson, as well as at the Chicago Art Fair and galleries in the United States. His talent was recognised early, including a prize at the John Moores Exhibition in Liverpool in 1980.
In 1993, Sinnott returned to Wales, a move that reinvigorated his work and rooted it firmly in the landscape, communities and people of the South Wales valleys.
It was this year that produced Running Away with the Hairdresser’, now housed in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, and widely regarded as one of the best-loved paintings in the national collection.
He built his home and studio in Pont-y-rhyl and continued to work prolifically, exhibiting regularly with the Martin Tinney Gallery in Cardiff and Flowers Gallery in London and New York. He worked up until the end of his life, always endeavouring to share his work with others, such as in an upcoming exhibition at Celf Gallery in Cardiff due in September.
Sinnott’s paintings have been acquired by a number of major public collections, including the **Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York**, the **British Museum**, the **Royal College of Art**, and the **National Museum of Wales**, alongside numerous private and corporate collections worldwide.
He was predeceased by his wife Susan in 2017. He is survived by his four children and 11 grandchildren.
Celf Gallery, Cardiff, shared the news this morning, writing: “It is with great sadness that Celf Gallery announce the passing of Welsh artist Kevin Sinnott, on Monday 27th July.
“Kevin’s love and zest for life played out in his exuberant and colourful paintings. He leaves behind a remarkable artistic legacy that transformed everyday Welsh life into images of universal humanity. His paintings will continue to speak of love, memory, place and the enduring spirit of Wales for generations to come.
“His scheduled exhibition at Celf Gallery this September will now stand as a tribute and celebration of his life and work.
“The valleys he painted are the richer for his affection — and Welsh art will be all the poorer without him.
“Our thoughts are with his family.”
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Ffin y Parc, which represented Sinnott wrote of his work: “Kevin Sinnott work is full of motion and joy: The paint flows, and the wind blows! Everywhere, there are flags and laundry and arms all waving. His figures can’t seem to contain themselves, forever rolling and beckoning, leaping and dancing! The streets and the hillsides are backdrops for the unruly choreography of life.
“How easy is it to talk about the pain and the losses, to show the scars on our landscapes and faces and to dwell on our myriad disappointments? Kevin rescues our treasures. He reminds us of the pleasure of the extravagant richness of the precious sun on our skin, the thrill of collapsing together into the grass after a breathless dash up the hill. He is clearly alive to the consolations of memory, but still he exhorts us to live in the present fleeting moment. To laugh and dance and love.
“Always, his generosity of spirit shines from his work. Eloquently, he brings his love for his home and its people to the attention of the world.”
Sharing an insight about his life in art, Kevin wrote on his website: “A young Welsh student recently asked me if I had grown up in an artistic home. I said I hadn’t. She looked around the studio and thought for a while and wondered how that could be. I recollected how in the early sixties the youth clubs of South Wales in association with the LEAs used to look out for us kids. For a while there were art and music classes. I could draw and paint, but I had left school early and these places provided mentors, leaders, and characters, that didn’t look or walk the other way. “Oh. The community, then”, my Welsh visitor said.
“After some twenty-five years away with more than a few ups and downs, I returned to that very community. It was initially a difficult return, not being exactly what my wife and I had wanted to do. In some ways it was more of a retreat from the challenges that my ambitions demanded I should always meet. Then, the returning of this native provided many more challenges. The artistic benefits, however, during the last fifteen years have been immense. The inspiration which I have gratefully, if not always humbly, received from my immediate environment, has sometimes seemed like a reward for coming home – the “fatted calf” even. A reward for the recognition and acknowledgement of my debt to the place in which my peculiar adventure began.”
View some of Sinnott’s latest works at Ffin y Parc Gallery, Llandudno.
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