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The Girl from Ceylon

45 x 34 cm
Oil on Board
Signed and dated, 1970

Llewellyn Petley-Jones

Llewellyn Petley-Jones (1908 - 1986) was a Canadian painter. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Petley-Jones was mostly self-taught. After working as a bank clerk for three years, he established a studio in Edmonton and turned to painting full-time. He was soon known for his portraits and landscapes of Edmonton and the west coast of Canada. In 1934 he moved to London where he exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists. He then set up a studio in the Montparnasse section of Paris and exhibited in the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d’Automne. When World War II broke out, Petley-Jones served in the British navy.

After the war he exhibited regularly in Canada. In 1954 Canadian Pacific Railway commissioned him to paint murals for the interior of one of their railcars. The murals are now in the collection at the Canadian Science and Technology Museum. In 1955 he was commissioned to paint portraits of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh for the Alberta Legislative Building. In 1955 Petley-Jones moved to Richmond, England where he spent the rest of his life. Petley-Jones never visited Ceylon and this portrait is of a woman he encountered in England.