A Welshman born in Cirencester; Llewellyn always knew he wanted to paint. He grew up in the glory days of Victorian academic painting, enrolling in the National Art Training School in South Kensington. There he studied under Edward Poynter, one of the high priests of the Victorian art world, a brother-in-law of Burne-Jones he was an uncle of Kipling and a future President of the Royal Academy. Llewellyn moved to Paris where his nascent establishment tendencies were set in concrete. The Atelier Ferdinand Cormon was virtually created to guide students to create paintings which would be accepted by the then rather staid jury of the Paris Salon, Llewellyn proved a model student. He excelled as a painter in the grand academic tradition long after the fauves and cubists had presented alternatives. Elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1920, he served as its President from 1928 to 1938. Two knighthoods followed and after his death he was honoured with a funeral at Westminster Abbey. His ashes lie in a memorial designed by Lutyens in the crypt at St Paul's Cathedral.