ABSTRACT
Gillian; he made a much wider circle of friends, they visited the theatre and concerts regularly, entertained guests, and travelled extensively on the Continent and to Egypt. (Appendix 3 ) Consequently, these new enthusiasms encroached upon the time he had available to paint - and at a time when he was being invited to exhibit with more commercial art galleries than he was able to supply with new work. (Appendix 1) So, when David Pare retired as Principal of the art school in 1976, John Elwyn
also decided to leave and concentrate on painting full time, returning to the more direct representations of the Cardiganshire landscape that were popular with the gal leries. He lived and worked in relative isolation in Winchester and reflected:
If you hang on long enough, it’s interesting how things come together. The state ment “John Elwyn’s In the Hill's E lbow , extends the Neo-Rom antic vein of Graham Sutherland’s landscape” - pleased me very much. If I had known about it twenty years ago things might have been different, because I never thought myself as belonging to any group or style at all. I wish I had, it would have been a help and have brought about a certain confidence that was necessary to sustain some quality that I was attempting to achieve. This was elusive and in a way I pursued the commercial element in many galleries at that time.113
