Llewellyn Xavier (born 1945) Saint Lucian, Watercolor on Paper. Shows the two Piton Mountains in shades of blue against a brightening sky. Signed bottom right of image. 

Overall Size: 24 1/2 x 24 1/2 in. 

Sight Size: 8 3/4 x 8 3/4 in. 

#4674 

Llewellyn Xavier was born on October 12th, 1945 in Saint Lucia, an island country in the eastern Caribbean. He first left the country for Barbados in 1962, working as an apprentice to a sugarcane grower for a time. A friend gave him a box of watercolors to use in his spare time, and he was soon drawn to art. His first exhibition on Barbados in 1966 was a great success, leading him to focus on art full time. In 1968 Xavier moved to England, where he became a proponent and pioneer of European mail art. He enrolled in the school of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1979, but after a religious experience he left art to become a Cistercian monk in Montreal, Canada. In 1984 he left the monastery, eventually marrying a fellow artist and returning to Saint Lucia to open a permanent home studio in 1987. His most recognizable work is a large cycle of collages created around 1993, which used a wide range of recycled materials and mediums and was highly acclaimed when it was first shown in Geneva, Switzerland. Xavier’s oil paintings, characterized by multicolored pearls of paint applied to the surface of the canvas using a series of special tools, were inspired from the beginning by his home country, particularly their iconic Piton mountains, and his technique developed over several decades and thanks to the influences of the various countries he visited. Xavier was appointed an OBE in 2004 in recognition of his contributions to the art of the Commonwealth, as well as his place in global and conservationist art movements. He is the founder of the Saint Lucia Sculpture Park, intended to bring public art to the landscape of the island. His work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others.