Robert Taylor

This Welsh artist loved painting men who looked like they’d just won a bet at the tavern. In Richard Gwynne Esq of Taliaris, he gives us a man draped in velvet, one hand resting on his hip like he owns the room, the other clutching a walking stick like he might swat the viewer with it. Taylor belonged in Gallery Tiles because every flamboyant ruffle and smug smirk in that portrait feels like a doorway into the 1700s, when Welsh gentry dressed like they were auditioning for a stage role.