Selected Collections
Petley Jones Gallery, Vancouver, BC
The Feckless Collection, Vancouver, BC
Canadian Science and Technology Museum, Ottawa, ON
National Museum, Cardiff, Wales

Memberships
Edmonton Art Club, (1927)
Alberta Society of Artists, (1931)

Llewellyn Petley-Jones, 1908-1986

Born in Edmonton, Alberta and educated at Strathcona Collegiate Institute in Edmonton where he developed passion for painting from an early age. However, he had no formal art training, instead opting  for a career in banking. It was a short-lived carrer, three years after working as a bank clerk, he turned to painting.

He established a studio in Edmonton, where he also taught art to support himself. He found success straight away, his paintings were accepted in 1931 at an annual juried show at the National Gallery of Canada. 

Llewellyn Petley-Jones became known for his portraits, oils and watercolours of the Edmonton and West coast area. 

Despite his success, in 1934 he moved to London where he established a studio. The following year one of his watercolours of Seba Beach, Alberta was accepted by the Royal Academy directors for their annual show in London.

In the same year he was accepted to exhibit by the Royal Society of British Artists. He then set up a studio in the Montparnasse section of Paris and exhibited with the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts. His success continued with pictures being accepted by the Salon d’Automne.

In 1939 he met and married Calgarian, Nancy Corbet in London. The couple went on an extended honeymoon to Florence, an stayed until June 1940, when the outbreak of WWII forced them to flee hastily to Southwest London. Llewellyn had to leave all his Florence canvases behind.

In London he held his first one-man show at Matthiesen Limited on Bond Street and The Rt. Hon. R.B. Bennett opened the exhibition.

After the war he returned to Paris often, setting up a studio and sometimes painting as many as 12 hours a day. 

In 1950 the family, (now with three children), returned to Canada where they lived in Edmonton. Fifteen years of his work was shown at the Museum of Arts in Edmonton. Shows were also held at Eaton’s College Street store, Toronto, and at the Contemporary Canadian Artists show at the Art Gallery of Toronto and the Western Art Circuit.

In 1954 the family moved again to Vancouver, BC. He was commissioned to a paint railway car interior (as part of a series) for the Canadian Pacific Railway. His subject was the Waterton Lakes National Park in southern Alberta.

 Shortly afterwards he was commissioned by the Alberta Government to paint the official portraits of HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh for the Edmonton Legislative Building. It took him a year to finish the portraits and they were hung in the Edmonton Legislative Building behind the Speaker’s Chair until about 1990.

He returned to England in 1954, now with six children, his seventh and last was born in June 1955.  The family decided to stay in England  and Llewellyn continued to paint and exhibit in  and around London.

Llewelyn Petly-Jones died in London in 1986.