Kit Williams

Christopher "Kit" Williams (born 28 April 1946) is an English artist, illustrator and author best known for his 1979 book '' Masquerade'', a pictorial storybook which contains clues to the location of a golden (18 carat) jewelled hare created by Williams and then buried "somewhere in Britain".

Williams published three other books and was commissioned to create three public clocks with elaborate mechanisms and moving parts, such as animals, for visual interest.

Born in Kent, England, Williams continues to paint figurative art at his studio in Gloucestershire.

Work

Kit Williams now primarily works as a figurative painter in which he uses traditional oil-painting techniques, fashioning first a wooden panel covered in linen and oil gesso. He then uses many layers of opaque and transparent Dutch oil paint to create luminous images.

Williams likes to maintain complete control of every aspect of his artwork including making the clothes worn by the models, creating sets and props, and often making mechanisms either within the frame or the painting that reveal moving elements of the artwork and encourage interaction by the viewer.

Using marquetry, he has always made his own frames which enables him to make pictures of any shape and allow elements of the picture to continue into the frame in often intricate detail.

Past work

As well as his best-known book, '' Masquerade'', Williams wrote '' The Bee on the Comb'', a puzzle book with a bee theme. The book was initially published without a visible title, and readers were challenged to work out the title from clues inside the book and send in their answer without using the written word. This competition ran for just a year and a day, and the winner was revealed on the live BBC
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