11 Facts About Alfred Janes

Alfred George Janes was a Welsh artist, who worked in Swansea and Croydon.

Alfred Janes experimented with many forms, but is best known for his meticulous still lifes and portraits.

Alfred Janes is remembered as one of The Kardomah Gang, an informal group of young artists in Swansea that included the poets Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins, and the composer Daniel Jones.

Alfred George Janes was born on 30 June 1911, in the city centre of Swansea, South Wales, above his parents' fruit and flower shop in Castle Square.

Alfred Janes attended the Bishop Gore School and then the Swansea School of Art and Crafts.

In 1932 Alfred Janes became part of a group of bohemian Swansea friends that included poets Dylan Thomas, Charles Fisher, John Prichard and Vernon Watkins, composer Daniel Jones, artist Mervyn Levy and "Marxist scholar" Bert Trick.

Alfred Janes made portraits of Vernon Watkins the poet; James Henry Govier, the painter, etcher and engraver; William Grant Murray, the painter and head of Swansea School of Art and Crafts; and Gwilym Thomas, the ceramic artist.

In 1936 Alfred Janes settled in Swansea again, and taught part-time at the Swansea School of Art and Crafts.

Alfred Janes was posted to Egypt, where he worked for two and a half years in a prisoner-of-war camp.

In 1963 Alfred Janes moved to London, accepting a post at Croydon College of Art, and from then until his death he lived at Dulwich.

Alfred Janes is buried in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church, Penrice, Gower.