The farm called Ngare Ndare: 'without a name'

Ngare Ndare Farm

Oil Painting by William Powys


Will Powys was first and last a farmer, not an intellectual; nevertheless the creativity that ran in his family was in him too.   In undeveloped countries, farming is in itself creative; with virgin land as his canvas, the farmer translates his vision into fields and pastures, crops and cattle, as an artist will apply his paint.  The artist in Will expressed itself both in husbandry and, like his sister Gertrude, in paint.  He painted the landscapes he loved, and used to offer a picture as a birthday present to each of the children.  'Choose any scene you like,' he would say, 'and I'll paint it for you.'  The child in question would pick a scene and he would set up his easel.  'Somehow or other . . . . Mt. Kenya nearly always seemed to come in.'

       In old age Will would sometimes tire before he completed a painting, and call on his servant to finish it off under his direction -- in the tradition, perhaps, of those Old Masters whose pupils would fill in the details.  All his pleasures centred on his family, his sheep and cattle and his properties:  Kisima, Ngare Ndare and Il Pinguan.  'Don't you ever need a holiday?' someone asked him.  'But all my life has been a holiday,' he replied.

Elspeth Huxley
Out in the Midday Sun