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Advertisment for Ben Evans.
WWW2 and People
Advertisment for Ben Evans Department store in Swansea.The illustration shows the store's frontages on Temple Street and Castle Bailey Street. The advertisment dates from the 1920s and makes great claims for 'The premier fashion and furnishing house of Wales and the West.' Text in advertisment reads -' Departments deal comprehensively with every requirement for personal wear or complete house furnishing at prices which are the lowest anywhere for goods of equal quality...visitors are invited to walk through at any time during business hours - there is no obligation whatever to purchase.'


Mr. Richard Glynn Vivian - R. E. Pfeniger
Nineteenth Century Art
Richard Glynn Vivian (1835 - 1910) was the founder and principal benefactor of the art gallery which bears his name in Swansea. He was the fourth son of industrialist John Henry Vivian but unlike his father and brothers Glynn Vivian chose to study the arts. When his father died in 1855, Glynn Vivian inherited a quarter share in the family copper business but rather than becoming involved he instead used the income to pursue foreign travel and art collecting. Glynn Vivian returned to Swansea in 1898, buying Sketty Hall. By 1902, he was virtually blind. In 1905, he offered his art collection to Swansea, inclusive of a gallery to house it. Initial doubts regarding the financial viability of the venture prevented immediate acceptance but in 1908, after consultation, the offer was renewed and accepted. He laid the foundation stone on 14th May, 1909 but did not live long enough to see the inauguration of the Gallery. The opening ceremony was performed by his brother, Graham, in July 1911.


Oystermouth Castle - Thomas Rowlandson
Eighteenth Century Art
Enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools at the age of 16, Thomas Rowlandson (1756 - 1827) went on to enjoy a successful career as a watercolour portrait artist and a satirist. This view of the ruins of Oystermouth Castle, with the twin islets of the Mumbles visible on the horizon, dates from 1797 when Rowlandson accompanied his friend, Henry Wigstead, on a short tour through the Principality, recording their journey as they travelled. By 1799 Wigstead, an author, was in a position to publish Remarks on a tour to North and South Wales, twenty-two aquatints made up in the main of Rowlandson's work but also including a small number of his own. The majority of these landscapes are now in the collection of the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, purchased from a London dealer by Sir John Williams, founder of the library, early in the nineteenth century.


Coal Mining - Archie Rhys Griffiths
Art of the Twentieth Century
Archie Rhys Griffiths (1902 - 1971) was born in Aberdare but brought up in Gorseinon on the outskirts of Swansea. He worked in the Mountain Colliery and the tinplate works at Gorseinon before attending Swansea School of Art (1919 - 1924) and the Royal College of Art (1924 - 1927). This pencil and ink wash drawing depicts a cross-section through the underground chambers of a coal mine, depicting the tragedy unfolding there as being inextricably linked to the church on the hill via an almost venous network (of tunnels then hedgerows) which pass through the mine workings at the heart of the community. This 'cross-section' technique was adopted again by Griffiths for the mural he produced at the Workingmen's College in Camden Town (1932).


Wartime Chemist's Formulary, Scales & Pill Box
World War Two
During the war years,1939-45, it was not only food, fuel and clothes that were in short supply. The availability of tablets and medicines was also affected. The National Formulary for 1941, listing pharmaceutical substances, their formulas, uses and methods of preparation for use by doctors, pharmacists, etc. stated "War conditions make it imperative to exercise the strictest economy in prescribing...many important substances are available in but limited amounts for medicinal purposes. They are more urgently required for other branches of the nation's war effort." The ingredients that were available were weighed out precisely on scales using tiny brass weights (2ozs; 1oz; 1/2oz; 1/4oz). The tablets were then dispensed in circular, cardboard pill boxes like this one from J. T. Davies (Chemists) Ltd. of the Uplands in Swansea. Paper-based pill boxes were patented in 1890 by Robinson & Son (today Robinson Healthcare, Worksop) whose business began in 1839.


Ship's Badge - H.M.S. Arethusa
World War Two
The ship's badge of H.M.S. Arethusa mounted on a black wooden shield "Presented by The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to SWANSEA to commemorate the adoption of H.M.S. Arethusa during Warship Week Nov.22nd 1941." The presentation was in recognition of the money raised by the town as their contribution to the government instigated ship-building programme during WWII. In return, Swansea presented a plaque to their adopted ship at a ceremony in the Brangwyn Hall in Oct. 1942, "The citizens of this ancient town having successfully completed the raising of the sum £1,250,000 during Warship Week Nov.15th - 22nd 1941. The Corporation of Swansea by Resolution in Council presented this commemoration tablet to the ship of their adoption H.M.S. Arethusa." Even today the link between ship and city has not been forgotten, Arethusa Quay, part of the Maritime Quarter housing development was opened by Rear Admiral Snow in Aug.1984.


German RAD Sleeve Patch
World War Two
This woven silk sleeve patch was worn on the uniform of the German Reichsarbeitdienst (RAD), the national work service created in July 1934 to combat soaring unemployment figures. Although originally an independent, non-military organisation, when troops were mobilised in 1939, RAD's work of building roads, fortifications, etc., made them a vital auxiliary service contributing to the smooth running of the military and in the later years of WWII they were allowed to carry weapons. Originally, all males, aged 18 - 25, were conscripted into RAD/m for a period of 6 months before entering military service for 2 years. Female membership (RAD/wj) was encouraged during the war years. RAD/m was divided into divisional districts each identified by a Roman numeral between I-XXXX, this patch numbered XIV identifies the district of Halle-Merseburg, west of Dresden. The patch was machine-woven at the BeVo (Bandfabrik Ewald Vorsteher) factory in Wuppertal, Germany.


Merchant Navy Buttons
World War Two
Four of a set of twelve circular brass buttons for a Merchant Navy officer's uniform. The raised design depicts a slightly modified naval crown before an anchor within a braided rope surround. The reverse displays a maker's mark - R. Macleod (6) Rd 664376. The naval crown, of alternate sterns and topsails, dates back to the early 18th century and is also known as Nelson's crown, as it was used to commemorate his victory at Copenhagen in 1801. The official uniform of the Merchant Navy was introduced by the Board of Trade in 1918. An officer's uniform jacket displays eight brass buttons running vertically down the front in two rows, while six buttons distinguish those who are not officers.


World War I Medals - Thomas Davies
World War One; the Sea
Thomas Davies, recorded at the Swansea Harbour Trust Offices as being a Pilot (No. 27) and Master (No. 025157), was living at 88 Oxford Street, Swansea when these medals were sent to him by the Board of Trade in 1921. For his service during World War One, he had been awarded the Mercantile Marine War Medal 1914-18 in conjunction with the British War Medal 1914-18. These were accompanied by a letter (dated 11th July) from the awarding body's Marine Dept. (War Medal Branch) and an 'authority to wear' notice. The bronze medal was awarded to those members of the Mercantile Marine (the forerunner of the Merchant Navy) who had served on one or more voyages through a danger zone between 4th Aug. 1914 and 11th Nov. 1918. The silver British War Medal was instituted by King George V to mark the end of World War One. The riband design of the bronze medal follows the port, main mast and starboard light colours. While the reverse of the medal depicts two steamships and a submarine in heavy seas.


M.O.'s Helmet
World War Two
During the Second World War, ARP wardens supervised an allocated sector (or district). Although each warden was trained in first aid, many of the casualities, resulting from air raid incidents, received injuries of such severity as to warrant the attentions of a doctor. Therefore each ARP wardens' sector was also assigned an ARP Medical Officer (M.O.) sometimes known as an incident doctor. This white helmet, initialled M.O. in black, would have identified the doctor. They were often required to work in situations in which they themselves were at risk of physical injury.


Llwchwr Urban District Council - Air Raid Precautions
World War Two
This card displays vital information regarding the whereabouts of the A.R.P. Wardens' Post, the name of the warden, the nearest First Aid Post, etc., for the village of Gowerton on the outskirts of Swansea. The importance of this information, to the public during wartime, is emphasised by the urgent command at the bottom to 'Hang this card in a PERMANENT and PROMINENT position where it can be seen AT ALL TIMES.' The duties of the A.R.P. Warden included knowing where all air raid shelters were within their sector and assisting people to those shelters as swiftly as possible; they would 'police' the night-time 'black-out' ; they would keep the public clear of any unexploded bombs; they would encourage people to carry their gas masks at all times; they reported any fires to the fire service; with their first aid training they were able to rescue people following bomb damage and they would also assist with the demolition of any structures left unsafe following an air raid.


County Borough of Swansea - Air Raid Precautions
World War Two
This pamphlet was issued by the Air Raid Precautions Department at the Guildhall in Swansea in January 1941. It is entitled Air Raid Precautions: Hints to the Public in relation to Air Raids and the Consequences Thereof. It's content is derived from the Ministry of Home Security's publication Air Raids - What You Should Know & What You Should Do. It offers the public practical advice on what to do in situations such as having to evacuate their homes as a result of enemy action; how to seek compensation for injuries received and how to go about tracing separated family members. In February 1941, just one month after this document was published, Swansea was to suffer devastating damage as a result of the Three Nights' Blitz (19th - 21st).


Incendiary Bomb Fragments
World War Two
Fragmentary remains of incendiary devices (later inscribed Feb-19-20-21-1941) recovered after the Three Nights' Blitz on Swansea. Around 56,000 of these devices (Type B1 E1 ZA) were dropped on the town by the Luftwaffe. The initial attacks began with the dropping of parachute flares in combination with high explosive bombs, these were followed by the incendiary devices which caused fires that were then used as targets for the final sweep of high explosives and even more incendiaries. Approximately 112,000 properties in the town were damaged or destroyed. 409 people were injured and 230 people killed. A basic incendiary device (weighing 1 or 2 kg) would consist of a magnesium cylinder with a central core of thermite with a steel tail and an explosive device in the head.


Anderson Shelter
World War Two
This type of air-raid shelter was designed by David Anderson, B. L. Hurst and Sir Henry Jupp based on the 1938 prototype created by William Paterson and Oscar Carl Kerrison. The galvanised corrugated steel shelter, designed to be constructed in a four-foot deep hole in the garden, consisted of 14 panels bolted together, 6 curved panels at the top, 3 straight sheets on each side and one straight panel at each end, one of which contained a door. Once built, the shelter was 6' high x 4' 6" wide x 6' 6" long and could accomodate 4 to 6 people. To complete construction it was intended that 15" of soil be distributed over the roof of the shelter. More than 2 million shelters were put up during WWII. For those on low incomes they were issued free of charge but for those on higher incomes the Government levied a charge of £7. The shelters were named after Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson, who was responsible for civil defence in 1938.


'If the Invader Comes'
World War Two
Codenamed Operation Sealion, Hitler's plans to invade Britain were set for July 1940. Following the German invasions of Poland and France, it was a threat taken seriously. This leaflet issued in 1940 by the Ministry of Information in co-operation with the War Office and the Ministry of Home Security was entitled If the Invader Comes. It's message is a practical one and it's tone up-beat in an attempt to quell the very real fears which civilians must have been experiencing - "The Germans threaten to invade Great Britain. If they do so they will be driven out by our Navy, our Army and our Air Force." People are advised not to be taken by surprise; not to flee their homes but to 'stay put' ; not to believe or spread rumours; to keep watch; not to help Germans in any way but to be ready to help the military. "Remember always that the best defence of Great Britain is the courage of her men and women.....Think before you act, but think always of your country before you think of yourself."


Morrison ' Table' Shelter Instructions
World War Two
Issued by the Ministry of Home Security, this leaflet explains in text and diagrams How to put up your Morrison "Table" Shelter. More than 500,000 shelters had been distributed by November 1941, free of charge, in a self-assembly format of more than 250 parts. When built these small bomb shelters were 6' 6" long x 4' wide x 2' 9" high, the table top was 1/8" solid steel plate with welded wire mesh sides and a metal lath floor. One wire side lifted up, allowing people to crawl inside the structure, where there was sleeping space for 2 or 3 people. They were especially useful in flats and in houses without cellars or gardens (for Anderson shelters). They were designed, by John Fleetwood Baker, to absorb the impact of falling debris. The shelters were named after Herbert Morrison, the Minister of Home Security on whose team, Ellen Wilkinson (1891-1947) had responsibility for air-raid shelters and who was instrumental in introducing Morrison shelters in March 1941.


Identity Card
World War Two
Identity cards were issued to all civilians, recorded on the National Register, from 1939 to 1952. The National Register was set up by wartime emergency legislation - the National Registration Act receiving Royal Assent on 5th Sept. 1939. The reasons given for the introduction of identity cards included (i) the need during wartime for complete manpower control, made difficult by the dispersal of the population through mobilisation and mass evacuation. Planning was necessary in order to maximise the efficiency of the war economy. (ii) the existence of a current register would ease the introduction of rationing (January 1940). (iii) the Government needed accurate population statistics in order to make vital planning decisions but the start of the war fell between the censuses. So the creation of the National Register required civilians to give their name; age; sex; occupation; residence; marital status and membership of any reserve organisations e.g. Civil Defence.


H.M.S. Arethusa - Warship Week 15th-22nd Nov. 1941
World War Two
During WWII the Royal Navy lost well over 1,000 vessels to enemy action. To counter the losses, a vast ship-building programme was begun. The huge expense involved however forced the Government to look to the British people as well as to borrowing from other countries. The peoples' generosity is reflected in the Warship Weeks of 1941/2. During these weeks concerts, dances and other fund-raising events were held. Communities were then able to 'adopt' a warship, receiving a shield from the Admiralty in recognition and often , in return, presenting 'their ship' with a commemorative plaque. This programme recalls Swansea's presentation ceremony at the Brangwyn Hall in Oct.1942. "The citizens of this ancient town having successfully completed the raising of the sum £1,250,000 during Warship Week Nov.15th-22nd 1941. The Corporation of Swansea by Resolution in Council presented this commemoration tablet to the ship of their adoption H.M.S. Arethusa." The Arethusa sailed in the Malta Convoys.


Gas Mask Box
World War Two
This cardboard box, secured with metal rivets and with a cotton bias-binding carrying strap, contains a gas mask. On the lid it states 'This special respirator for a small child is Government Property. Any person who has it in his possession is responsible in law for using care to keep it in good condition. It is to be returned to the local authority in whose area the possessor may be at any time, either on request or when no longer required'. Inside the lid are further instructions on how to pack the respirator and how to put it on and remove it safely. Following the severity of the gas attacks on troops during the First World War, it was feared that this time the attacks would be extended to the civilian population. Gas masks were issued to everyone in 1938 with instructions that they be carried at all times. The importance of maintaining the masks in good condition was emphasised as the possible difference between life and death. Fortunately, however the attacks never materialised.


Anemones - original watercolour pattern for ceramic design
Ceramics
Throughout history, the popularity of flowers has been apparent in the recurring use of floral images and designs, in paintings & books, in tapestries and on ceramics. This hand-painted watercolour of three anemones (L. anemone coronaria) is one of a series painted by Henry Morris probably created as 'models' for Cambrian ceramic painting. Nantgarw Pottery founder, William Billingsley (1758-1828) was the leading rose painter of his day. While at the Cambrian Pottery, in Swansea, specialist painter Thomas Pardoe (1770-1823) found the semi-stylized manner in which he had been taught to execute flowers at Derby was not to the taste of pottery owner and renowned botanist, Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778-1855). In The Pottery & Porcelain of Swansea & Nantgarw, Morton Nance describes how "...Dillwyn seems to have requested him [Pardoe] to take as his guide Curtis's Botanical Magazine and copy its coloured plates as carefully and accurately as possible....".


'Swansea's Mermaid'
Ceramics
A delicately-featured pearlware mermaid sits on a decorated plinth, her arms encircling two fluted, cornucopian shells (one slightly damaged). The plinth base bears the 'Swansea' mark in a capitalized font, indicative of the figure having been made at the Cambrian Pottery between 1790 and 1810. It is thought that this mermaid was made by George Bentley, who was employed as a modeller at the Pottery in the late 18th / early 19th century. A candlestick made by Bentley (on display at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea) carries an identical basal decoration. The flatness of the mermaid's head suggests there having been another vessel (now lost) atop the figure. While a fascinating article in Minerva: the journal of Swansea History (Vol. XI, 2003, pp.43-47) written by ceramics expert, Helen Hallesy, on this unusual figure, offers up the possibility of there once having been two figurative side pieces (possibly cherubs) to accompany the mermaid.


Capt.John Rowlands with his sons-in-law (incl. S. Schleswick)
Ships and Seamen
Mr.Sydney Schleswick was 1st Engineer aboard the SS Roddam, the only ship to escape the devastation wrought by the volcano, Mount Pelée, when it erupted in May 1902, destroying the capital city and harbour of Saint-Pierre on the Caribbean island of Martinique. Swansea-born Sydney was one of very few survivors. This photograph was given to Swansea Museum by Mr.Schleswick's daughter. On the reverse of the photograph is inscribed the following description: 'Photo. of Capt. John Rowlands with his sons-in-law, Capt. Alfred Hurley (?) (Commodore of 'Royal Mail Lines'), Mr. Sidney Schleswick (my father) 1st engineer, Mr. Tom Welsh, 1st engineer.'


Deck of the SS Roddam swept with volcanic ash
Ships and Seamen
Saint-Pierre, capital of Martinique and once known as the 'Little Paris of the West Indies' was destroyed in May 1902 by the eruption of the volcano, Mount Pelée, which had lain dormant for more than fifty years. 40,000 lives were lost to the pyroclastic flow disgorged from the crater, the original nuée ardente (Fr. fiery cloud). The only ship to escape the boiling cauldron of the harbour was the British steamship, the SS Roddam, whose decks, swept with volcanic ash, can be seen here. This is one of a small number of photographs given to Swansea Museum by the daughter of Sydney Schleswick, the Swansea-born engineer aboard the SS Roddam who miraculously survived the disaster.


Sidney Schleswick on board the SS Roddam
Ships and Seamen
This is Sydney Schleswick (b.1880), the son of a Swansea schoolmaster. Sydney is standing on the deck of the SS Roddam. He and a fellow Swansea seaman, named Watters, were the ship's engineers. In 1902, they were eyewitnesses to the eruption of the volcano, Mount Pelée, which destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre on the Caribbean island of Martinique. The SS Roddam was the only ship to escape from the harbour. An assistant purser on the Roraima, the only other ship to remain afloat, was able to record: "I saw St.Pierre destroyed. The city was blotted out by one great flash of fire. Of 18 vessels lying in the road, only the British steamship Roddam escaped and she lost more than half of those on board. It was a dying crew that took her out ..." Sydney survived, he returned to Swansea, where he worked on the docks. In his 84th year, Sydney recalled his memories of that historic day for the South Wales Evening Post, on the 62nd anniversary of the disaster.


'A Last Appeal to Reason'
World War Two
Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the subsequent fall of France in June 1940, Hitler believed the time to be right (July 1940) to invade Britain, his plans were codenamed Operation Sealion. On 19th July 1940 Hitler delivered a speech to the Reichstag (seat of the German Parliament), entitled A Last Appeal to Reason in which he urged Britain to avoid all-out war by submitting immediately to Germany's demands. The speech was then published as these propaganda leaflets which were dropped over southern Britain during bombing raids on the night of 1st August 1940. However Hitler had not reckoned on the courage of 'the Few' - those pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain (Summer 1940) repelling the onslaught of the Luftwaffe so successfully that Hitler was forced to abandon his invasion plans. In a typically defiant gesture, it is said that some people collected up these leaflets in order to auction them to raise funds for the British Red Cross Society.


Bayonet
World War Two
This dagger-like weapon is a bayonet, designed to be attached to a rifle muzzle. It has a 25cm (10") steel blade and a wood / steel hand-grip. It is a close combat weapon. The name 'bayonet' derives from Bayonne, the town in SW France where it was first used in the seventeenth century. A bayonet blade can be of this traditional knife-design or of a needle, spike or saw-toothed variety. A bayonet is usually kept in a scabbard which is then worn suspended from a soldier's belt.


Sewing & Darning Materials
World War Two
A collection of sewing & darning materials from the Second World War, including J. & P. Coats cotton thread, bias binding, Coats sewing machine cotton, Clark's mending wool for darning and Veribest lisle for mending hose (stockings). Following the introduction of clothes rationing in June 1941, the Ministry of Information prepared a booklet (price 3d) for the Board of Trade called Make Do and Mend. It encouraged women to care for and repair clothes. A character named 'Mrs Sew and Sew' appeared in magazines extolling the message and 'make do and mend' classes were advocated. The wartime maxim which came to define self-sufficiency in Britain apparently originated in an early naval term 'make & mend' which referred to the half-day off-duty that sailors once enjoyed during which they would 'make' clothes and 'mend' equipment.


Brass Shell Cases
World War Two
Two brass 20mm cannon shell cases recovered from an air crash on Gower during World War Two. Both are incised on the base: K2 1942 20mm and ST 1943 20mm.


'Country Fare' Recipe Book
World war Two
This booklet contains recipes contributed by the 'Friends of Prisoners of War' including the Lady Swansea, Miss Clarice Vivian & the wives of Pontardawe industrialists, the Gilbertsons. The title suggests that the stringencies of rationing have deliberately been ignored here in favour of Country Fare: a collection of special not-so-wartime recipes. Compiled by Mrs Hugh Vivian (Mary, daughter of Isabel & Frank Gilbertson of Glan Rhyd, Pontardawe, who married Captain Hugh Vivian in 1917) and published by W. Whittington Ltd., Printers of Neath at 3/6 (17.5p), the proceeds from sales of this booklet were donated to the Duke of Gloucester's Red Cross & St. John Fund. When war was declared (Sept. 1939), the British Red Cross Society & the Order of St. John joined forces as the Joint War Organisation, whose work was funded by the Duke of Gloucester's Fund which had, by 1946, raised £54m. Their work included the provision of medical supplies, food parcels, etc. for our prisoners of war.


Car Headlight Blackout Cover
World War Two
During WWII a night-time blackout was instituted, policed by ARP wardens. All windows and doorways, in both public buildings and private houses, had to be sealed, using heavy blackout curtains, cardboard or paint, to prevent any glimmer of light from escaping and aiding enemy aircraft during their bombing raids. Virtually all street lights were switched off, while those left burning were dimmed and shielded to deflect their light downward. Traffic lights and vehicle headlights were fitted with slotted covers to deflect their beam down to the floor. This is a 'slit mask' (car headlight cover) from that time. In the pitch blackness, human collisions with stationary objects were common. Matt-white bands were painted on lamp-posts, post-boxes, etc., to aid visibility. While people took to carrying shielded torches. Blackout safety posters offered advice such as "Walk facing traffic - where you can see and be seen" or "In the blackout - to hail a bus or tram shine a torch on to your hand."


A.R.P. Badge
World War Two
A silver A.R.P badge comprising the 'Air Raid Precautions' initials surmounted by the Royal Crown. On its reverse, this badge carries a London Assay Mark dating it to 1942. These badges were issued (between 1937 - 1943) to ARP volunteers on completion of their training. An early recruitment poster showed an outstretched hand, palm uppermost, on which lies one of these badges, the image is captioned "Where's Yours ?". There were approximately 1.5 million ARP wardens in Britain, almost a supplementary police force. They were expected to know everyone who lived within their 'sector', then if a bomb dropped, the warden could direct the emergency services quickly and efficiently. Other duties included supervising the 'blackout' , ensuring not a chink of light was showing, from vehicles or buildings, that might inadvertently assist enemy aircraft. They also had to supervise people in reaching the air-raid shelters, then in the 'all-clear' draw up accurate reports of each bombing incident.


Army Camp Bed
World War Two
Standard Army-issue camp bed.


Fire Guard Armband
World War Two
The destruction rendered by the bombs and incendiary devices dropped on Britain by the Luftwaffe encouraged civilians to volunteer as 'fire watchers', giving up their evenings and weekends to seek out and assist with extinguishing potentially hazardous fires. These groups of volunteers, who became known as 'the Midnight Watch' were part of the Civil Defence force, and as such were organised by their local ARP Warden. This navy blue armband with gold lettering would have been worn as identification by one of these volunteers. In September 1940, a Fire Watchers Order was issued, compelling men to 'fire-watch' for a maximum 48 hours per month. One wartime poster declared 'Britain's Fire Guard is Britain's Defence'. In his autobiography, published in 1960, wartime Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison stated '...there is no doubt that Fire Guards prevented thousands of serious conflagrations'.


Cadbury's 'Cococubs'
World War Two
Between 1939-45 toy production was severely disrupted by the commandeering of materials to the war effort. With few new toys available, children had to 'make do' with old and second-hand toys. It is possible that these handpainted hollowcast lead figures were 'handed down'. They are 5 of the series of 32 collectable 'Cococubs' made by the toy company, Britains, for Cadbury's who gave them away as promotional gifts with Bournville Cocoa - 'the Children's Cocoa' - from 1934-39. (During World War II cocoa & chocolate products were regarded as 'essential' for both the armed forces and civilians and therefore their production came under Government control). 'Cococubs' were designed by artist Ernest Aris (1882-1963) in a style that owes much to Beatrix Potter. The characters here, Mrs.Cacklegoose; Henrietta Fussy Feathers; Freddy Frog; Granny Owl and Silas Slink Fox are just some of the popular figures which were available to the Collectors' Club organised by Cadbury's from 1936 to 1939.


A.T.S. Badge
World War Two
An Auxiliary Territorial Service hat badge comprising the initials 'A.T.S.' surmounted by a King's crown and surrounded by a laurel wreath. The Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) began in September 1938 as an attachment of the Territorial Army. Following the outbreak of World War Two ATS volunteers numbered around 65,000 (17,000 of whom enrolled on the day after war broke out). In wartime, their original duties also increased to include driving, vehicle maintenance, manning Radar stations, anti-aircraft gun crew and ferrying aircraft from factory to airfield. In khaki uniform, they were paid 2/= a day. When the National Service Act (Dec. 1941) was passed, permitting female conscription, the ATS became one of four auxiliary services available for women to join, the others being the WRNS; the WAAF and FANY. Women could also join the civilian WVS or the Women's Land Army. By 1945, ATS numbers exceeded 200,000. In February 1949 the ATS were renamed Women's Royal Army Corps. (WRAC).


McDougall's Wartime Cookery Book
World War Two
The introduction of food rationing in January 1940 necessitated the re-writing of traditional recipe books to accommodate shortages of the most basic ingredients. Butter, bacon and sugar were the first products to be rationed, followed by meat and preserves (in March 1940), tea, margarine and lard (in July 1940) and cheese (in 1941). Published by McDougall's (at 6d / 2.5p) as their 'contribution to the Ministry of Food's Economy effort' this wartime cookery book What to give them? includes recipes for unrationed meat (e.g. rabbit) dishes, meatless dishes, egg-less and sugar-less cakes and a section of hints on 'Wartime Economy'. The recipes were designed to encourage wives and mothers to extract as much nutritional value as possible from the small amounts of food available. Surprisingly, in spite of these deprivations, the nation's health actually improved because of the imposition of a more balanced diet.


Elastolin Toy Figures
World War Two
During the years 1939-45, the world must have seemed a confusing and often frightening place to children. Around 3 million of them were uprooted from their homes and evacuated to places of safety, away from the German airborne assaults on major towns and cities. Sweets were rationed and new toys were in short supply. Toy factories had to turn over their metal and rubber stocks to producers of aeroplane parts and gas masks. The toys that were made during wartime were made of paper, cardboard & wood instead. Children often had to make do with old toys, like these Elastolin figures of farmyard ducks and chickens being fed by the farmer's daughter, from the 1930s. Hausser Elastolin was a German company which started making composition pieces c.1912. The composition was a mixture of sawdust, glue and later kaolin, moulded around a wire frame. The company made farm and zoo animals, as well as cowboys and indians, as it extended production in response to a demand for more than toy soldiers.


'Knitted Comforts for the Forces'
World War Two
Wartime was, for women, a time of 'make do and mend'. Clothes rationing (introduced in June 1941), along with a shortage of materials, meant that most women became adept at sewing & knitting. Clothes would be unpicked and made up again, either as something different or as the same thing a size smaller! Patching and darning became essential skills. Knitted items would be opened and knitted up again as something new. Knitters were also encouraged to use their skills to knit 'Comforts for the Forces' - this booklet of patterns was published by Hutchinsons in the 1940s and was priced at 6d (2.5p). It contains 'simple up-to-date patterns for the Navy, Army & Air Force'. It includes patterns for gloves & mittens, balaclavas and socks which could be distributed amongst our servicemen. While there are also patterns for items of use to those servicemen who had been injured in battle and were convalescing. Wool to make 'comforts' would have been bought or was available from the W.R.V.S.


Tin of Dried Milk
World War Two
Prior to World War II, British trade routes carried around 55 million tons of food into the country each year. Once war was declared, U-boat activity disrupted these imports to such an extent that it became necessary to impose food rationing (from Jan.1940). By Nov.1941 fresh milk distribution was being controlled to ensure fair allocation, especially to priority cases. To alleviate pressure on these supplies, dried milk became available from Dec.1941. This unopened tin, labelled 'National Household Dried Machine Skimmed Milk, USA' dates from that time. This product was specially packed for the British Ministry of Food, arriving in this country in food parcels. 1 tin was available per ration book, every 8 weeks. The 8ozs. of dried milk contained in the tin could be reconstituted by adding water and was sufficient to produce 4 pints of skimmed milk. Once made up, the milk would have to be kept chilled, usually by standing the filled jug in a bowl of cold water as few houses had fridges.


Tin of Shredded Coconut in Syrup
World War Two
Dating from World War Two (1939-45), this unopened tin contains shredded coconut in syrup produced by Bahama Food Products Limited of Nassau (now a subsidiary of Nestlé). At a time when food rationing (which began in 1940) and shortages had removed "treats" from everyone's diet (e.g. bananas did not become available again until 1945) it is likely that shredded coconut would have been a most welcome additional ingredient in cakes or biscuits.


British War Relief Society Gift Box
World War Two
This gift box dating from c.1940 once contained sweets (net weight 8ozs) produced by Henry Heide Inc. [ of New York ], an American candy company which originated in 1869, operating for 125 years until taken over by the Hershey Foods Corporation in 1995 / 6. The contents have long since been consumed but the original waxed paper still lines the box. Henry Heide's speciality product was almond paste (or marzipan) with candy production only a sideline. The lid is decorated with a wintry scene of red-roofed houses and green fir trees in the snow and inscribed:- 'Christmas Greetings from the ...British War Relief Society Inc. United States of America', who were a non-military, charitable organisation created in 1939 with the intention of providing welfare and support for soldiers in Europe. The Society would raise funds by selling souvenirs in America and Europe and by holding craft fairs and garden parties across the country. 40% of the Relief Society benefits came to Britain.


Egg Preserving Pail
World War Two
An egg preserving pail made of galvanized steel, with a moveable handle, lid and an internal metal basket. Food rationing and general shortages during World War II meant that the allotted one egg per person per week would sometimes be reduced to one egg per person per fortnight ! This was often an incentive for people to keep their own chickens, as households owning less than twenty hens were allowed to keep all the eggs they produced. Any surplus could then be preserved in a pail like this, filled with isinglass (or waterglass) - a gelatinous substance produced from the air-bladders of certain fish especially sturgeon (and used today for clarifying in wine and beer-making). The roosters would be reared for the table to supplement the meagre fresh meat ration.


Ship's Plaque - Camilla Gilbert
World War Two
This bronze ship's plaque, mounted and embossed Camilla Gilbert, Bergen, was recovered from a German submarine captured during World War II. The ship's history began in 1920 when she was built at Howden-on-Tyne and launched as War Lodge. She was completed for Gilberts of Bergen (Norway) as the Camilla Gilbert under which name she remained until 1928. Over the next decade she sailed as Eir and Mabuhay III before being renamed Eastern Star in 1938. A steam ship (5659 gross tonnage), she left Liverpool on 2nd May 1941 as part of a convoy of 38 ships destined for Halifax, Nova Scotia. During the evening of 7th May, she came under attack from the German submarine, U-94 (under Kptlt. Kuppisch). Struck by a torpedo, the ship was soon engulfed by fire, causing the vessel to sink within hours. Her crew (including 3 Britons) survived the attack and were rescued by the British escort trawler Daneman who landed the survivors at Reykjavik on 12th May.


Landscape of the Bagley Woods - Paul Nash
Art of the Twentieth Century
Paul Nash (1889-1946) was born in London, the eldest of three children (brother, John, was also an artist). He studied at the Slade, being a contemporary of Gertler and Spencer. Nash was recruited as a war artist (in 1917 and again during WWII) and after WWI he experimented with both surrealism and abstract art. This is one of a series of landscapes painted between 1942-3. This view is from the garden of 'Sandlands', a house on Boar's Hill near Oxford, looking across the Bagley Woods to the Berkshire Downs on the horizon and taking in the Wittenham Clumps, here suffused in sunlight. The Clumps (Castle Hill & Round Hill) are among the oldest Iron Age settlements in Britain and are believed to have been mentioned in The Mabinogion. They became one of the artist's potent personal symbols and he described his landscapes of this period as 'transcendental'. This work was part of the Nash retrospective exhibition Modern Artist, Ancient Landscape at Tate Liverpool in 2004.


Abstract With Woman's Head - Evan Walters
Art of the Twentieth Century
Artist Evan Walters (1893-1951) was born in Mynyddbach, he painted industrial landscapes, portraits and pictures with political and religious overtones. Like other Swansea and Swansea Valley artists, he was inspired by the reality of his surroundings. However Walters is also remembered for his experimentation in art, such as his 'double-vision' technique (see Stout Man with a Jug on this site), with which he persisted, even in the face of public dissatisfaction with the results. This painting dates from that period of experimentation, as can be seen from the effect of 'duplication' surrounding the male figures which flank the central female of the title, and overlay the simplified figures and buildings in a landscape which constitute the background. A detail from this work was used as the cover illustration of the definitive edition of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, published by Phoenix in 2000.


The Cockle Woman - Evan Walters
Art of the Twentieth Century
Cockles have been harvested on Gower (at Penclawdd and Crofty) since Roman times. Traditionally a female task, involving a hand rake and a sieve (or riddle), with donkeys to carry the full sacks inland from the low-tide beds. Swansea-born artist Evan Walters (1893-1951) has here portrayed one of the local cockle women. The sitter for this portrait was not in fact a cockle woman, but a relative of the artist named Sarah Goss.Wearing the very necessary layers of warm clothing, worn to resist the sometimes fierce shoreline winds and also the flat-crowned black straw hat which could bear the weight of a cockle pail or basket. Sometimes women became cockle-pickers to earn money if their husbands fell prey to illness or injury in the local coal mines or heavy industries. With its horizontal brushstrokes and use of broken colour, this work appears to fall within the experimental framework established by Walters in the 1930s in pursuit of his 'double-vision' technique.


The Welsh Collier - Evan Walters
Art of the Twentieth Century
Swansea-born Evan Walters (1893-1951) was one of a group of Welsh artists (with Vincent Evans and Archie Rhys Griffiths) who represented, with stark honesty, the industrial communities in which they had been reared. Walters' work captured all aspects of life in a coal mining community, the landscape in Cefn Cyfelach Colliery (1911), the weary wife suckling her child in Mother and Babe (1919). Art historian, Peter Lord comments on the 'surprise' with which Walters' work was greeted at his first solo show in Swansea in 1920, where observers were "...excited at seeing their industrial community portrayed in an art gallery [the Glynn Vivian] for the first time." (Industrial Society, p.185) His later work covered the politics of the coalfield in The Communist (c.1932), the despairing reality of The Dead Miner (c.1935) as well as a number of portraits of 'the miner' including this Welsh Collier (1931) about to 'light up' at the end of his shift. The sitter is believed to be the artist's brother.


Stout Man with a Jug - Evan Walters
Art in the Twentieth Century
Evan Walters (1893-1951) was born at the Welcome Inn, Mynyddbach. He studied at Swansea School of Art (1910/13) and later at the Royal Academy Schools. The Principal of Swansea School of Art, William Grant Murray, described Walters as 'one of the best students the school has produced', and as Curator of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Grant Murray organised Walters' first solo show (1920). "Always a restless personality, experimentation was never far from his practice...By 1935...he had started to experiment with an unconventional style of painting based on his theory of 'double vision' or to use the correct term physiological diplopia...He stayed with his theory right up to the end, maintaining that as double-images were a visual truth in nature the artist had a duty to explore them." (Barry Plummer in Drawn from Wales: a School of Art in Swansea 1853 - 2003 ed. Kirstine Brander Dunthorne)


Music of Colours - White Blossom - Ceri Richards
Art of the Twentieth Century
"Art in all its manifestations - music, poetry, drawing, painting and sculpture - was for Richards the key to the strangeness, beauty and violence of reality." (Mel Gooding, Themes and Variations, 2002, p.11) For this painting (1968) Ceri Richards (1903-1971) drew inspiration from the poem of the same title written by his friend, Vernon Watkins (1906-1967). "The vibrancy of the clear tones set one against the other, and the strong work of the palette knife in the thick paint of the blossoms create an energy contained in the symbols of life, death and regeneration...One of the most affecting elements in the poem, and captured in the painting, is the sense of mortality - the sense of shadow in midsummer, here represented by the black swan." (John Upton, Education Officer, GVAG) As the swan dies beneath the tree, its body, in turn, feeding the roots, the tree displays renewed life through its glorious blossoms - " White must die black, to be born white again."
© Estate of Ceri Richards 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


La Cathédrale engloutie III - Ceri Richards
Art of the Twentieth Century
Throughout his artistic career, Dunvant-born Ceri Richards (1903-1971) derived inspiration from both music and poetry. Between 1957 and 1962, he worked on a "series of semi-abstract seascapes [this one dating from 1960] that are a direct response to a much-loved piece of music" - Claude Debussy's piano prelude of 1910 - La Cathédrale engloutie. The music is itself a response to the legend of the submerged cathedral at Ys on the coast of Brittany, where, it is said, bells could be heard under the sea during moments of calm. " 'Debussy is a visual composer' Richards wrote, his words deliberately confusing the senses, 'his sounds and structures are derived from a visual sensibility. He gives me a feeling of the sounds of nature, as Monet does'." (Mel Gooding, Themes and Variations, 2002, pp.13/14.)
© Estate of Ceri Richards 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Ceri Richards
Art of the Twentieth Century
"Do not go gentle into that good night," is the impassioned plea of the poem by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) beseeching his father to strenuously resist death. The emotional plea is here interpreted (lithograph, 1965) by Ceri Richards (1903-1971). Both poet and artist were born in Swansea, but met only once at the Boathouse in Laugharne, just prior to the poet's final visit to the U.S.A. in 1953. Richards had already produced work which was thematically attuned to Thomas' poetry in his cycle of nature paintings from the mid-1940s. "In the mid-1950s and in the mid- to late 1960s Richards returned again to the subject. A consciousness of mortality seems to haunt much of his figurative work of the '50s, culminating in two great paintings on the theme of Thomas's poem for his dying father, Do not go gentle into that good night (1956), and the tragically sombre Deposition (1958), which now hangs in the City Church of St. Mary's, Swansea." (Themes and Variations, p.9)
© Estate of Ceri Richards 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


The Pianist - Ceri Richards
Art of the Twentieth Century
This work, from 1948, is one of a series painted through the '40s & '50s by Swansea-born artist Ceri Richards (1903-1971) blending music and interiors and often depicting his daughters. An accomplished pianist himself, much of his artwork was inspired by music and, in this painting, the avant-garde influence of Picasso and Matisse is also apparent. John Upton, Education Officer at the GVAG and himself an artist, explains "The paint is applied spontaneously with no overworking or second layers. A lot of the lines are created by 'sgraffito', scratching through the paint layer to reveal the light ground underneath." Ceri Richards' biographer, Mel Gooding describes the series as "These paintings with their reverberant colourism, their decorative arabesque vigour, their fullness of good things, sweet sounds and floral perfumes, reflect that contained domesticity. They are deeply tender in feeling, but detached in mood." (Ceri Richards, 2002, p.97)
© Estate of Ceri Richards 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


October 12-1952 - Ben Nicholson
Art of the Twentieth Century
Ben Nicholson (1894 - 1982) led the first generation of modern artists in Britain, along with sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. They introduced the ideals of international modernism as exemplified by e.g. the Bauhaus, De Stijl and Cubism. The influence of geometric abstraction is apparent in this work. Nicholson was a member of 'Unit One' (1933), a group of artists representing the British avant-garde in an international context. He and Hepworth were also invited to join the French abstract artists' group 'Abstraction-Création' (1935). By the late 1930s Nicholson was at the core of an avant-garde community established in Hampstead. Other members included Mondrian and Gabo, with whom Nicholson edited Circle: an International Survey of Constructive Art (1935) which aimed to show the contribution modern art could make to rebuilding the world following the events of the 1930s. During WWII Nicholson settled in St. Ives, Cornwall establishing the now famous artistic centre.
© Angela Verren-Taunt 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


Miners, 1951 - Josef Herman
Art of the Twentieth Century
The Josef Herman Art Foundation was launched in Ystradgynlais in May 2004, to promote interest in the artist's life and work and to encourage arts education initiatives in the area. Herman (1911-2000) was known fondly as 'Joe Bach' to the people of this former mining community at the top of the Swansea Valley where he lived for 11 years from 1944, only leaving (for Spain, then London) when the dampness of the Welsh climate began affecting his health. This work in 6 panels was commissioned in 1951 for the Minerals of the Island Pavilion at the Festival of Britain. It shows 6 miners resting above ground after their shift. John Upton, Education Officer at GVAG explains "Although often dark, his paintings have a warm glow to them and this is achieved by underpainting light, bright colour then building up slowly with darker tones so that the life of the picture radiates from within." Herman said of this work "I think it is one of my key pictures and the most important one I did in Wales."


Workings, 1946 - Josef Herman
Art of the Twentieth Century
Josef Herman (1911-2000) was born in Poland but fled in advance of the German invasion of his homeland in September 1939. Settling first in Glasgow, Herman arrived in Ystradgynlais, at the top of the Swansea Valley, in 1944. Invited to visit in order to seek inspiration for his work, he later recalled "I stayed here because I found ALL I required. I arrived a stranger for a fortnight. The fortnight became eleven years." This collection of five pen & ink sketches of miners at work is one of a series of studies inspired by the Welsh mining village. In an article published in Welsh Review (June 1946) Herman described how "...for weeks I wandered here on the hills, in the little streets, looking at the landscape, looking at walls and at men, at pits from far and near, sketching and talking to miners on the surface and underground, at work and at rest, studying their movements and their appearance. The miner is the man of Ystradgynlais...the miner is more impressive and singular."


Little Girl Wearing a Straw Hat - Gwen John
Art of the Twentieth Century
Children, nuns, domestic interiors, cats and solitary women compose the output of Welsh-born artist Gwen John (1876-1939). Following three years of study at the Slade School of Art in London and partly to escape an overpowering father, Gwen settled in France. In 1910 she moved to Meudon, on the outskirts of Paris, where a nearby convent-run orphanage provided her with many opportunities to draw and paint. Gwen's biographer, Sue Roe, describes how "...the children would arrive with the Sisters from the convent and sit towards the front of the church in their pinafores and hats, observed by Gwen, who now came to sit in her black cape drawing them from the back." (Gwen John: a life, p.129) In 1918, friends fearing for her neglected health invited Gwen to Pléneuf on the north coast of Brittany where "Gwen did many drawings of Breton children, smartly turned out in their dresses, ribbons and hats." (ibid.p.178)
© Estate of Gwen John 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


Woman with a Coral Necklace - Gwen John
Art of the Twentieth Century
Welsh-born artist Gwen John (1876 - 1939) studied at the Slade School of Art in London and then later with Whistler in Paris. She continued to live in the French capital for virtually the whole of her adult life, choosing though to live a life of relative seclusion compared with that traditionally associated with artists in Paris. She worked not only as an artist but also as an artist's model (see The Whistler Muse by Rodin). Gwen's "...subject matter is almost exclusively restricted to portraits of solitary women, who most often appear in an interior. Perhaps seated with hands clasped , or standing by a window gazing out, they express quiet reticence and a sense of withdrawal from the world...Her other favoured subjects were cats, orphan children and nuns (see also this site), often repeating one subject with the minutest of variation." (Tate Modern: the handbook, p.178)
© Estate of Gwen John 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


The Nun - Gwen John
Art of the Twentieth Century
Born in Haverfordwest, brought up in Tenby, Gwen John (1876 - 1939) spent much of her adult life living in France. She chose to live in relative obscurity, shunning the more Bohemian lifestyle associated with her brother, Augustus. In 1910 she moved to a flat in Meudon outside Paris. In 1913 a nearby convent (the Order of the Sisters of Charity of the Holy Virgin of Tours) commissioned Gwen to paint a portrait of their 17th century founder, Mère Poussepin (at NMGW Cardiff) from a likeness on a prayer-card. "It was to be the first of several similar paintings, since the nuns [ ] decided they would like one for each room in the convent and it set a precedent for Gwen's habit of making several variants of the same subject...she worked on all the versions concurrently, tiring herself out over this for the next seven years (Roe, Sue Gwen John; a life, p.148). In addition to this work, other 'Nuns' from the sequence may be seen at the Tate and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts.
© Estate of Gwen John 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


Marriage at Cana : Bride and Bridegroom-Sir Stanley Spencer R.A.
Art of the Twentieth Century
Originally conceived by Stanley Spencer (1891 - 1959) in the 1930s as part of a projected series of 50 sacred and profane images depicting the cycle of human life-the 'Church House' scheme-Marriage at Cana (1953) is symbolic of God's blessing on the state of marriage. Spencer has personalized the scene by modelling the bride and bridegroom on his first wife, artist Hilda Carline and himself. They were married in 1925 but divorced in 1937. Spencer's second marriage (to Patricia Preece) was not a success but reconciliation sought with Hilda was not successful either. However he continued to celebrate on canvas what eluded him in life. He said "...my desire to paint pictures is caused by my being unable or incapable of fulfilling my desires in life itself." The high viewpoint adopted here by Spencer adds to the awkwardness of movement as the puppet-like couple prepare to sit at the table on which their tiered wedding cake awaits.
© Estate of Stanley Spencer 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS


Orléans Cathedral - J. M. W. Turner
Nineteenth Century Art
A man waters his horses, children play on an islet and five women busy themselves with laundry, in the shadow of a ruined bridge once supported on Gothic arches. So wholly absorbing is the activity in the foreground of this painting by J.M.W.Turner (1775-1851) that one is in danger of overlooking the actual subject of the work, Orléans Cathedral (Cathedral of Sainte-Croix), positioned in the misty middle distance. Probably the greatest of Romantic landscape artists, Turner travelled widely. His visits to Europe between 1817-1840 centred on rivers - he captured what stood on their banks and what moved on their surface. This visit to the Loire Valley took place in August/September 1826. His technique on these trips has been recorded as involving numerous sketches made on the spot which would then be worked up into paintings on his return to Britain. Turner's Loire, Tours, Orléans & Paris Sketchbook is housed in Tate Britain.


Daedalus finding the body of Icarus - Henry Thomson
Nineteenth Century Art
Over a quarter of a century (between 1801/25), Henry Thomson (1773-1843) rose from associate member, through academician to Keeper of the most prestigious art establishment in Britain, the Royal Academy. As a Neo-Classical artist, he was famed for his mythological subjects, a preference he shared with Swansea art collector John Deffett Francis who purchased this work (dated 1810) on July 14th, 1880. Mythology, along with history and the Bible, were then considered the most important sources of inspiration for academically-trained artists.
The story of Daedalus and his son, Icarus, comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It tells how the brilliant inventor devised a means of escape for himself and his son when they were imprisoned by King Minos of Crete. Wings fixed with wax enabled them both to flee captivity but despite his father's caution, freedom made Icarus reckless, he flew too close to the sun, melting the wax securing his wings, causing him to fall to his death.


The Mumbles Train, Swansea Bay - William Grant Murray
Art of the Twentieth Century
The Mumbles Train (in all its guises from horse-drawn through steam to electric), has evolved as an iconic symbol of Swansea's progress through the years. Here, William Grant Murray (1877-1950) has captured a moment during the last year of the steam train in 1928.
Grant Murray was Swansea's Director of Art, being Principal of the Art School (1908-43) and first curator of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery (1911-50) as well as being a prolific landscape painter in his own right (see other Swansea views on this site).
It is recorded that on Bank Holidays during the 1920s more than 40,000 people a day would travel this way. Business would have been brisk at the Bay View Hotel (far left) and also at the beach-hut shops on the sands, serving refreshments to the people crowding the beach.
The luminosity which emanates from this scene speaks of an Impressionist influence probably gained by Grant Murray during a period of study in Paris in 1905-06.


Calvert Jones & Dog & Family - Calvert Richard Jones
Nineteenth Century Art
On one sheet of paper, Swansea-born artist Rev. Calvert Richard Jones (1802-1877) has recorded two sketches c.1846. Left is a middle-class Victorian family group, of the artist himself with his wife, daughter and their dog. To the right, a Swansea pilot cutter drawn up on the shore, undergoing repairs. The identifying number 'S10' marked on the sail tells us this is the 'Providence' - in service c.1840-60 (Greenlaw, J. Swansea Copper Barques..., p.203) As well as being a renowned marine artist, Calvert Richard Jones was also a pioneering photographer, credited with taking the first dated photograph in Wales (Margam Castle, 9th March, 1841). He was a friend of C.R.M.Talbot ( known as 'the wealthiest commoner') and one of the circle of early photographers led by W.H. Fox Talbot and John Dillwyn Llewelyn. His sketches, like these, have been found to relate to photographs he had taken, some of which may be seen in Under Sail: Swansea Cutters, Tallships... 1830-1880.


Portrait of Dylan Thomas - Alfred Janes
Art of the Twentieth Century
Artist Alfred Janes completed three portraits of the poet, Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), of which this pen & ink drawing from c.1964 is the third. Both men attended Swansea Grammar School however, a difference in their ages meant that they did not meet until their schooldays were over. Since then, stories of their friendship and that of the other 'Kardomah Boys' (Watkins, Levy, Fisher & Jones) have gone down in cultural history. In the London of the 1930s, Fred and Dylan shared "...in a succession of flats...with other members of 'Swansea's Bohemia in exile'. Dylan would 'sit in bed in his overcoat with that pork-pie hat and write poetry while [Fred] painted in the corner.' ...in 1934...Fred painted the first of his three portraits of the poet, now in the National Museum of Wales, and his second of..Mervyn Levy. 'Mervyn had been to the Royal College and knew how to sit,' Fred recalled.'Dylan was in and out like a cat in a tripe shop.' "(Hilly Janes in Alfred Janes 1911-1999, p.36)


Still Life With Hyacinths - Alfred Janes
Art of the Twentieth Century
Alfred Janes attributed his skill in creating still-lifes to his having been born over a fruit & flower shop in Swansea's Castle Square. His distinctive technique was described by Mel Gooding who curated Janes' retrospective at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in 1999, "The extraordinary still life works of the '30s were notoriously slow in the making, being painted over several months with a meticulous concentration not only upon the objects depicted, but on the over-all design of the picture. They are complex compositions in which every detail is held tight in a structured formal harmony." Janes used a simple technique of outlining the depicted objects with a linear incision (made with a penknife) and later "...complicated the technique by marking a polygonal grid on to the board before painting the subject, and then retracing and incising it into the finished painting. In this way he was able to achieve a unique crystalline brilliance of image." (Alfred Janes 1911-1999 p.5)


Study for Portrait of Daniel Jones - Alfred Janes
Art of the Twentieth Century
This study of Daniel Jones (dated 1949) was drawn by Alfred Janes in preparation for the portrait that now hangs in the National Museums and Galleries of Wales in Cardiff.
"Fellow [Swansea] Grammar School boys, the aspiring composer Daniel Jones and budding poet Dylan Thomas, were younger than Fred [Janes] and he did not meet them until after he had left. They became friends as the nucleus of a remarkable artistic generation from the town which also included...Ceri Richards and the poet Vernon Watkins.....With Dan Jones in particular, Fred shared a love of music, 'We had a wonderful time talking about our work', he recalled in 1998, 'I have always played the piano and had an interest in the relationship between music and painting; they have so much in common, yet are so different'." (Hilly Janes in Alfred Janes 1911 - 1999, pp.34-5)


Portrait of Vernon Watkins - Alfred Janes
Art of the Twentieth Century
In the radio play, Return Journey broadcast on 15th June 1947, Dylan Thomas revisits the Swansea of his youth, including the Kardomah Café (destroyed in the Blitz) where he and other "poets, painters and musicians in their beginnings" would meet, drink coffee and debate anything and everything. This portrait, dating from 1949, is of Vernon Watkins, one of the 'poets', painted by Alfred Janes, one of the 'painters', of Thomas's memory. They were part of a remarkable circle of friends who were to redraw the cultural map of their home town. Mel Gooding, curator of the Alfred Janes retrospective held at the Glynn Vivian in 1999 described the portrait as having "...a core intensity, as if the creative spirit of the subject has been rendered visible as a kind of aura." (Alfred Janes 1911-1999, p.5) This image was also used to illustrate an article by Vernon Watkins entitled The Need of the Artist published in The Listener in 1962.


Portrait of William Grant Murray - Alfred Janes
Art of the Twentieth Century
In this meticulously executed brown chalk drawing dating from 1951, we can see the coming together of two of the most influential contributors to the cultural heritage of Swansea. The subject is Scots-born William Grant Murray (1877-1950), Principal of Swansea Art School (1908-1943), first curator of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery (1910-1950) and an artist in his own right (a selection of works may be seen on this site). His likeness has been captured by artist, Alfred Janes, who was born over a fruit & flower shop owned by his parents in Swansea's Castle Square. Janes both studied and taught at the art school. "As a student he was co-opted on to the Glynn Vivian purchasing committee, to which he belonged for twenty-five years, being influential in the acquisition of some of the best modern works in its collection." (Hilly Janes in Alfred Janes 1911-1999, p.34) This posthumous drawing was shown at the Memorial Exhibition of Grant Murray's work held at the Glynn Vivian in 1952.


Bateaux en Hollande pres de Zaandam - Claude Monet
Nineteenth Century Art
Between the years 1871 and 1886, artist Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) visited the Netherlands on three occasions. During the first visit (1871) Monet, with his wife, Camille and their son, Jean, spent several months in Zaandam in North Holland. Of that time, he later recalled "...houses in every colour, mills by the hundred and delightful boats...". A number of canvases survive from this period in Holland, including a very similar view Mills in the Westziderveld near Zaandam (1871) in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Stylistically, Bateaux en Hollande... predates Monet's more recognisable works which famously began with Impression: Sunrise (1872) shown at the first Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1874. Bateaux en Hollande... was presented to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in 1974 by Her Majesty's Treasury in lieu of settlement duties.


Welsh Landscape in Winter - Derwent Lees
Art in the Twentieth Century
Enthralled by the wildly beautiful scenery of that remote area of North Wales between Bala and Blaenau Ffestiniog, artists Derwent Lees and Augustus John (born Tenby, 1878-1961) were enticed to join fellow-artist James Dickson Innes (born Llanelli, 1887-1914) at Nant Ddu, a rented cottage which stood in the shadow of Arenig Mountain. For two years, they attempted to capture the seasonal changes of light and colour that occurred around them in the area they felt to be 'the nearest place to Heaven'. Their work, executed in an essentially Post-Impressionist style, provides a unique and Romantic contribution to the British landscape genre. This wintry landscape, from that period, is the work of Derwent Lees (1885-1931). Born in Brisbane, Australia, Lees taught drawing at the Slade and was a member of the New English Art Club from 1911. Sadly his artistic career was curtailed by a mental health problem which saw him confined to an asylum from 1918 until his death in 1931.


Madame Adelina Patti - Gustave Doré
Nineteenth Century Art
Although born in Spain to Italian parents, soprano Adelina Patti (1843 - 1919) is considered Welsh by adoption. In 1878, she bought Craig-y-Nos Castle, situated beside the River Tawe in Abercraf, at the head of the Swansea Valley, where she lived until her death. This portrait of the diva is one of a number executed by flamboyant French artist Gustave Doré (1832 - 1883) who "according to gossip, [ ] was so much in love with Patti that he threatened to kill himself in her boudoir if she would not have him..." (Cone, J.F., Adelina Patti: Queen of Hearts, p.82) His love however was not reciprocated and their friendship remained platonic. Doré also enjoyed the friendship of Swansea benefactor, Richard Glynn Vivian who purchased this unfinished portrait from amongst a range of works located in the artist's Paris studio after his death.


Judith with the head of Holofernes - Gustave Doré
Nineteenth Century Art
Stories from the Bible have, traditionally, been deemed suitable subject matter for artists. Although not strictly Biblical, coming instead from the Old Testament Apocrypha, no story has proved more popular, visually, than that of Judith slaying the Assyrian general, Holofernes in order to save the Israelites. With varying degrees of bloodiness, this story of female courage has been depicted by, among others, Mantegna (1495); Caravaggio (c.1598) & Artemesia Gentileschi (1620). But here, the trophy being held aloft has been captured by Gustave Doré (1832-1883).
Born in Strasbourg and largely self-taught, Doré became a book illustrator in Paris. His illustrations for a new English Bible were so popular that a major exhibition of his work was staged in London. But it was his depiction of the poor in London: a pilgrimage (1872) that brought him the greatest critical success.


La Folie - Gustave Doré
Nineteenth Century Art
A richly-dressed young woman sits, weeping. She nurses a marotte or jester's bauble (the sceptre-like insignia of the medieval court jester), a symbolic inclusion perhaps, given an added dimension by the title which translates as 'the madness'. X-rays of the painting show the artist originally painted the woman with a baby in her arms (notice the cradle in the top right-hand corner), was the child dead or dying ? Rapid overpainting has turned a sentimental composition into a far more enigmatic work.
This painting by Gustave Doré (1832-1883) was bought by Richard Glynn Vivian at the second sale of works from the artist's studio (14th-15th April, 1885) at the Hotel Drouot , Paris. Glynn Vivian and Doré had been friends for a number of years prior to the premature death of the artist, at the age of 51. They would frequent fashionable soirées in the French capital, where Doré's artistic skills were much in demand.


Blue Vase - Ivon Hitchens
Art of the Twentieth Century
"I try to use a notation of tones and colours so that the design flows from side to side, up down, and in and out. I am not interested in representing the facts as such until this visual music has been created." (Forty-five Paintings, London: Serpentine Gallery, 1989, p.21) Here, Ivon Hitchens explains the creation of rhythmic movement in his work with which he aims to weave the viewer's gaze across the picture plane before drawing them in. The creation of visual 'sound' was vitally important to him, Hitchens painted pictures to be 'listened' to. Born in 1893, he trained from 1912 at the Royal Academy Schools. The work of his early career was influenced by Braque. The development of the notational technique was significant to the middle years of his career. While in his later years he produced landscapes in which he sought to capture the spirit rather than the appearance of a place. He died in August 1979.


Castle Lane, Swansea c.1887 - Alfred Parkman
Nineteenth Century Art
This watercolour of Castle Lane, Swansea, dated 1887, by Bristol-born artist, Alfred Parkman (1852-1931) bears comparison with another view of the Lane painted by William Butler in 1850 (also on this site). Despite the passing of more than a quarter of a century between these works, the narrow thoroughfare joining the Strand to Castle Bailey Street, winding uphill past the town's medieval castle, can still be seen to be a busy walkway, but safer, thanks to the provision of pavements and street lighting. Topographical views of Swansea, the Gower coast and small-scale street scenes were popular themes in Parkman's work even before he moved to the area from the south-west of England. He lived in West Cross near Mumbles which at that time was a popular area for artists. Parkman, who had trained as an architect, was said to be a prolific artist. Local folk-lore recounts that he paid many of his household bills with paintings.


Swansea from Townhill - Alfred Parkman
Art of the Twentieth Century
Bristolian Alfred Parkman (1852 - 1931) moved to Swansea in the mid-1880s, where his first home was a converted stable loft at the Mermaid Hotel in Mumbles. Prior to this relocation, Parkman had exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Royal West of England Academy, usually showing topographical scenes of Bristol, Monmouth and Swansea. He was a founder member of the Swansea Arts Society (1886), in whose history he is described as having "painted watercolours of land and sea scape, but for the most part he specialized in ecclesiastical buildings and displayed a mastery of detail", a skill which probably resulted from his training as an architect. This panoramic view of Swansea from Townhill, dated 1917, incorporates a range of Swansea's historical architectural landmarks, including St. Mary's Church, Swansea Castle, Ben Evans store and Swansea Market.


At the Coal Face - Vincent Evans
Art of the Twentieth Century
"Throughout his career Vincent Evans used his artistic talent to celebrate the industrial community....His knowledge of mining ensured accuracy in every detail, but his paintings often take on the quality of a theatre set with figures captured in pools of light as they perform their duties on their restricted stage." (John Upton, Education Officer, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery)
Vincent Evans (1894 - 1976) was born at Ystalyfera in the Swansea Valley , the son of a monumental mason. He left school at thirteen, spending the next ten years as a coal miner. After the First World War, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art but despite the geographical separation from his roots, mining remained the most constant of themes through his work. This painting and the mural Family Life (also on this site) were presented to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, in 1983, by Vincent Evans' daughter, Audrey, in memory of her father.


Family Life (Welsh Family Idyll) - Vincent Evans
Art of the Twentieth Century
Vincent Evans (1894-1976) has created "a large-scale painting allegorical of a working people's Utopia. He located A Welsh Family Idyll (c.1935) at the western edge of the coalfield where he had grown up, Ystalyfera in the Swansea Valley. The mood was contemplative and the main themes were continuity and harmony within the family, and the bond between people and the earth...The group is shaded by an oak tree symbolic of wisdom. The figures, representing the generations of the family, are absorbed in their own thoughts. Vincent Evans eschewed the cliches of Welsh life - the chapel, the choir, the national costume - and painted a picture which was timeless yet thoroughly modern...Evans regarded the picture as his most important and worked on it over a long period..." (Peter Lord, The Visual Culture of Wales: Industrial Society, 1998).


Swansea for Business - William Grant Murray
Art of the Twentieth Century
This oil, by William Grant Murray (1877 - 1950), complements Swansea for Pleasure (also on this site). This panoramic view swings east, taking in the docks and industries at the mouth of the industrial hinterland of the Lower Swansea Valley. Grant Murray sought to create a productive working relationship between the arts and industry in Swansea. In his role as Principal (1908-43), "[h]e wanted the art school to make a strong contribution to Swansea's commercial life and to work closely with local trades and industries...[he] hoped to install forges for metalwork in the art school, iron and steel, tinplate and copper being Swansea's chief industrial products." (Gordon Grainger in Drawn from Wales: a School of Art in Swansea 1853-2003 ed.Kirstine Brander Dunthorne)


Swansea for Pleasure - William Grant Murray
Art of the Twentieth Century
From the elevated viewpoint of his home, artist William Grant Murray gives us a panoramic view across Swansea Bay to the West. The bay appears bathed in an almost Mediterranean light. On the horizon can be seen the twin islets of the Mumbles, with the lighthouse just a speck. Sunlight gleams off the sails of myriad boats and yachts. However the picture is not truly complete until this work is seen in tandem with Swansea for Business (also on this site) which shows the docklands, to the East, at the mouth of the industrial hinterland of the Lower Swansea Valley. William Grant Murray (1877 - 1950) contributed a lifetime of cultural enhancement to Swansea, both as the Principal of Swansea School of Art (1908 - 1943) and as Curator of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery (1910 - 1950).


Cefn Bryn, Gower - Lucien Pissarro
Art in the Twentieth Century
Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944), eldest son of Impressionist painter, Camille Pissarro, painted this view of Cefn Bryn from Pennard Castle during the summer of 1933. Invited to the area to recuperate (following an operation) by an old schoolfriend of his wife, Esther - the Pissarros became fascinated with the Gower Coast and stayed for a number of weeks. In fact , the artist's entire output for that year was painted on Gower, with another three paintings being completed at Reynoldston. His style by this time was showing " a gain in freedom and simplicity and an intense concern for structure of landscape." (Froom Tyler, 'Lucien Pissarro in Gower' in Gower: Journal of the Gower Society, Vol.XX, 1969) Pissarro had studied under his father, as well as being influenced by Neo-Impressionists, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. He, in turn, became an influential figure within the Camden Town Group of painters, which also included Walter Sickert and Augustus John.


Untitled Drawing of a Worker - Sir Frank Brangwyn R.A.
Art of the Twentieth Century
An untitled print by Sir Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) depicting a man sawing a piece of wood. In pencil, charcoal & white chalk on paper, we are able to observe a basic idea being worked up in successive stages. This work may have been a preparatory drawing for a large oil painting which Brangwyn was commissioned (1913) to produce for the Carpenters' Company, one of the City of London's oldest livery companies. Or it could possibly have been one of the illustrations which Brangwyn provided for Christian Berman's book The Bridge: a chapter in the history of building.(London:John Lane, 1926)
Brangwyn was a decorative artist whose work appeared in a myriad of formats but in Swansea his name is forever associated with the creation of the British Empire Panels which line the auditorium of the Brangwyn Hall, the city's premier concert hall within the Guildhall.


British Empire Panel (No.13 / Asia) - Sir Frank Brangwyn R.A.
Art of the Twentieth Century
This is one of the 17-panel sequence of paintings which adorn the auditorium of the Brangwyn Hall, the concert/conference venue within the Guildhall, Swansea. The British Empire Panels were created by Sir Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) in response to a commission (1924) from the House of Lords, to commemorate the dead of World War I in the Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster. However the resultant profusion of vegetation, animal life and people brought to life in sumptuous colour, representing the extent of the Empire which the fallen had sought to protect, proved too exuberant a memorial for the Lords. The panels, which took 7 years to complete and which the artist felt to be his finest work, were, instead, installed in the Brangwyn Hall in 1934. Sir Frank Brangwyn, who came of Anglo-Welsh parentage, paid a private visit to the Guildhall to see the panels installed.
Brangwyn's preparatory drawing for the rhinoceros (visible bottom right) may also be seen on this site.


Study of Rhinoceros - Sir Frank Brangwyn R.A.
Art of the Twentieth Century
A black & red chalk drawing, heightened in white, on grey paper, showing a rhinoceros. This is one of 62 preparatory studies drawn by Sir Frank Brangwyn c.1926 and gifted to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, by the artist, in 1936. The studies were for a commission, received by Brangwyn in 1924, from Lord Iveagh for a mural for the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords.The mural was intended to commemorate the fallen of World War I by showing 'war scenes'. After 2 years' work, Brangwyn, who had been an official war artist, felt it inappropriate to show such horror. Instead, he felt the mural should try to capture the spirit of all those things within the Empire which the dead had given their lives to protect. The resulting 17 panels were a colourful profusion of people, flora & fauna from around the world. The mural was rejected by Lord Newton as being "far too exuberant for our conventional and restrained surroundings." The mural found a permanent home in 1934 at the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea.


Study of Pelicans - Sir Frank Brangwyn R.A.
Art of the Twentieth Century
A charcoal & wash drawing, heightened with white chalk on grey paper, depicting two pelicans, one of 62 preparatory drawings by Sir Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) from the mid-1920s, gifted to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery by the artist in 1936. The studies were made in preparation for a commission received by Brangwyn in 1924 from Lord Iveagh to devise a mural for the Royal Galleries of the House of Lords. The painting was to commemorate the dead of World War I, the commission specifying 'war scenes' (Brangwyn had been an official war artist during the conflict). After 2 years' work, Brangwyn felt it inappropriate to attempt to capture such horrors. He felt the mural should show instead the spirit of all those things within the Empire which the dead had fought to protect and keep free. The 17 panels then depicted a colourful profusion of people, flora & fauna from around the world. The change led to their rejection by the Lords, finding a permanent home instead at Swansea's Brangwyn Hall.


The Artist's Mother - Mark Gertler
Art in the Twentieth Century
"I am painting a portrait of my mother. She sits bent on a chair, deep in thought. Her large hands are lying heavily and wearily in her lap. The whole suggests suffering and a life that has known hardship. It is barbaric and symbolic. Where is the prettiness! Where! Where! " despaired Mark Gertler (1891-1939). His parents, Louis & Golda, were impoverished Jewish immigrants from Poland who settled in Spitalfields in London's East End. If this portrait (1913) lacks the faux 'prettiness' of traditional female portraiture of centuries past, Gertler has instead captured the honest dignity of labour and the depth of spirit possessed by his proud mother. External financial assistance had allowed Gertler to train with the brilliant pre-WWI intake at the Slade. However, emotionally-destructive time spent on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group, together with ill-health, led to his suicide in 1939. This painting was gifted to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery by the Contemporary Art Society (Wales).


Solitude - Richard Wilson
Eighteenth Century Art
Richard Wilson (1713/14 - 1782) has been described as the 'Father of British Landscape painting'.
Born near Machynlleth, Wilson studied art with Thomas Wright of London (1729), achieving acclaim as a portrait painter. However, when Wilson undertook the Grand Tour (1750), the effect of the time he spent in Venice and Rome meant that he abandoned portraiture in favour of painting landscapes in the 'Italian Manner'. Returning to Britain (1757) Wilson found patrons within the landed gentry, his work leading Ruskin to say that "with Wilson the history of 'sincere landscape art' began." He also took Thomas Jones of Pencerrig (1742 - 1803) as a pupil for two years.
Solitude (original title: Landskip [sic] with Hermits) is one of his most important landscapes. 'It was designed to appeal to wealthy landowners...who liked to think of themselves as hermits in the privacy of their estates.' (Richard Wilson Themes & Variations, p.14)


Ruined Buildings, Naples - Thomas Jones
Eighteenth Century Art
2003 was the bicentenary of the death of artist, Thomas Jones of Pencerrig (1742 - 1803). The anniversary was celebrated with a major retrospective exhibition at the National Museum and Gallery of Wales, Cardiff (subsequently at the Whitworth, Manchester and the National Gallery, London). At the heart of the exhibition were a handful of oil on paper sketches completed in Naples c.1782 (of which this is one) described by the National Gallery as "...masterpieces of observation and concision..." This work depicts the ruins of what are thought to be convent buildings on a hillside in Capo di Monte, Naples, the walls pitted with scaffolding holes.
Thomas Jones was a pupil of Welsh landscape painter, Richard Wilson (1713/4-1782). During his lifetime his work did not always enjoy public acclaim though it is now recognised that he is "...one of a select group of 18th century Welsh artists of international significance." (Ann Sumner, NMGW in Thomas Jones: An Artist Rediscovered).


Head of Christ - Gustave Doré
Nineteenth Century Art
This charcoal drawing is one of a number of works purchased by Swansea benefactor Richard Glynn Vivian, at a sale of the contents of the studio of French artist Gustave Doré, in Paris in 1885. Glynn Vivian and Doré had been friends for a number of years prior to the artist's premature death in 1883, at the age of 51. They were probably introduced by the Westminster cleric, Rev. F.K. Harford, who had met Doré at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1867, inviting him to London. Doré paid his first visit the following year.
This drawing of the Head of Christ crowned with thorns is unfinished, as is often the case with items bought directly from a studio sale, where works might still be in progress. However it is possible to detect an expression of resignation in the sensitively drawn features.
As an illustrator, one of Doré's most successful collaborations was in Doré's English Bible, published to much acclaim in 1865.


Llanmadoc Hill, Gower - Sir Cedric Morris
Art of the Twentieth Century
Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris (1889 - 1982) was the eldest child of a Sketty family, spending his formative years in and around Swansea.
As an artist, he was largely self-taught having left the Academie Delacluse in Paris, after one term, to join the army at the outbreak of war in 1914. This meant that he did not begin painting until 1918. However by the late 1920s he had enjoyed many successful exhibitions, most notably at Tooth's in London in 1928.
Painted a decade into his career, this landscape, capturing the Gower landmark, Llanmadoc Hill, reflects the simplicity and clarity of style that Morris established early in his career and never relinquished despite having met some of the most prominent avant-garde artists of the 1920s.


Carmarthen-Leeds Return - Craig Wood
Art of the Twentieth Century
The work of conceptual artist Craig Wood (b.1960) arrived in Swansea via an artistic journey which began with the 'Freeze' exhibition of Goldsmiths graduates in 1988. Following solo exhibitions across Europe, Wood created this feather, painted with the image of a train ticket, for 'Locws International 2000', the site-specific arts event held across the city of Swansea. Carmarthen-Leeds Return was inspired by the feathers painted by the Cape Horners as mementos for their families during long sea journeys. Seeing Carmarthen-Leeds Return displayed alongside the 19th-century feathers, Wood said of the work, "I felt a real kinship with the crew & was moved by the notion of men living in isolation out at sea...I've spent the last few years travelling...away from my own family..." Carmarthen-Leeds Return won the 2003 Wakelin Award which is administered by the Friends of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in memory of Richard & Rosemary Wakelin.


The Corridor - Harry Holland
Art of the Twentieth-century
Born in Glasgow in 1941, Harry Holland trained at St. Martin's School of Art (1965-69). He settled in Wales in 1973.
A recent BBC Wales 'On Show' profile described him as "...one of Britain's best craftsmen...technically brilliant...his style is distinctive." Of his work, they said, "...his paintings deal with human figures in carefully, sometimes theatrically, defined space. The paintings are suggestive in the sense that they imply situations, events or relationships that are not directly expressed... This imbues the paintings with an engaging sense of mystery." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/on show)
Purchased for the Gallery by the Friends of the Glynn Vivian, The Corridor was an unusual acquisition in as much as it was accompanied by five preparatory studies, created in the early stages of planning and painting, and rarely released by the artist.


View of Hafod Copper Works - James Harris Snr.
Nineteenth-century Art
James Harris Snr. (1810 - 1887) came to Swansea from Exeter in the 1820s. He lived with his family in Wind Street, where his father, John, had a picture-framing business. James moved to Mumbles in the 1850s.
An artist of considerable merit, James Harris became an authority on Swansea shipping, using this knowledge to great effect in his marine paintings. Patronised by the Vivian family (local industrialists), their support enabled him to travel widely, developing his art. Here, in View of Hafod Copper Works from the East Side of the River Tawe he has captured (in the background, shrouded in smoke) one of the Vivians' most successful business ventures, the Hafod Copper Works, operational in the Lower Swansea Valley for 115 years. At one point this was the largest copper smelting works in the world. In the foreground are the tipping staithes on the East Side of the Tawe at Foxhole.
In later life , James Harris moved to Reynoldston, in Gower, where he died in June 1887.


Landore Viaduct, Swansea - Jack Jones
Art in the Twentieth Century
Jack Jones was born in 1922 in Aberdyberthi Street, Hafod, at the very heart of industrial Swansea. Self-taught, this exponent of outsider art was inspired by the landscape of the world's first industrial nation. Often described as 'The Welsh Lowry', he referred to himself as 'The Leonardo of the slag heap'. In Painting the Dragon (2000), fellow Welshman, Prof. Anthony Jones (President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago) speaks of Jack Jones's ability to take a scene and boil it down to its "fundamental elements". (p.24) A major exhibition of Jack Jones's work, including this interpretation of Brunel's viaduct, was held at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in 1993, shortly before the artist's death.


Head III - Shani Rhys James
Art of the Twentieth Century
Australian-born Shani Rhys James lives in the wilds of Powys. In her barn-like studio she produces the striking, often disturbing works that brought her the prestigious Jerwood Prize for Painting in 2003. This is the third in a sequence of 'Heads' recently acquired by the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. There is an androgynous quality to the face that stares out from the unframed canvas. It has been observed that men appear rarely in Shani's work. This is interesting in art historical terms, as traditionally it has been the male artist who has depicted women, often motivated by desire. In this painting Shani has made herself androgynous, there is nothing in her demeanour, to indicate that she is female. She is refuting the male gaze, establishing her position as an artist and a woman.


Head II - Shani Rhys James
Art in the Twentieth Century
Shani Rhys James (b.1953), one of the most eminent of contemporary Welsh artists, lives in Powys. In 2003, she was named Woman in Culture at the Western Mail Welsh Woman of the Year Awards. This is the second in a challenging series of three 'Heads' recently acquired by the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. Early immersion in the world of theatre, via her parents, has led the artist to a fascination with what she has described as "...that mask thing of the theatre, the lead paint on the face and the wig - the disguise you go through." (Curtis, Welsh Painters Talking) To make a self-portrait the artist has to look in a mirror. In looking in a mirror, Shani is also questioning her self-image. What is reality, do we construct an idealised self-image in this act of looking ? Through the media we are bombarded with notions of idealised beauty and how it can be achieved. In this process of looking we must also be aware that we are looked at, both the surveyor and surveyed.


Head I - Shani Rhys James
Art of the Twentieth Century
Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1953, artist Shani Rhys James moved to Wales in 1984 after studying at Central Saint Martin's. This is the first of a sequence of confrontational 'Heads' recently acquired by the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. A melancholic and haunting face with a hypnotic stare, the image is challenging but there is also a vulnerability. The artist is questioning her identity. Nowadays identity is elusive as society is so multi-faceted - there are endless possibilities. Identity can be constructed through our different social roles and positions. Shani is questioning the importance of how we are perceived by others.


On the Beach Bournemouth - Henry Scott Tuke
Nineteenth-century Art
A young woman (believed to be May Hughes), warmly clad in black, sits reading on a deserted stretch of beach. Dated March 1882, this oil on canvas by Henry Scott Tuke (1858 - 1929) combines all those elements that brought the artist to eminence as a 'plein-air', figure and marine painter. His later reputation revolved around his contribution to the controversial history of the nude in Victorian art, in particular the naked youth, the complete antithesis of this work. Tuke had entered the Slade aged just 16, later studying in France and Italy, this latter period being responsible for his fascination with light, colour and the human form. However, he is probably best remembered for his brief association with the Newlyn School.


Branwen - Christopher Williams
Art of the Twentieth Century
"Alas!" said she, "Woe is me that I was ever born, two islands have been destroyed because of me." (Mabinogion, Guest: English Transl. 1838).
Maesteg-born artist Christopher Williams (1873 - 1934) attended the Royal Academy Schools (1896), his work being influenced by Lord Leighton and G. F. Watts. In 1905 Williams went to Bangor, North Wales to paint a portrait of Prof. Morris Jones. Of his stay he wrote to his wife, Emily: "..I have been steeped in Celtic ideals...The Mabinogion has been in constant use...I have plenty of subjects for painting, three of which I shall soon tackle. It is a goldmine untouched and full of Welsh fire and imagination." This oil on canvas (1915), with its deliberately limited palette, of Branwen, daughter of Llyr, was presented to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery by the artist shortly before his death. Ceridwen (1910) and Blodeuwedd (1930) complete the trio which so inspired this proudly Welsh artist.


At Penllergare
Photography
Philip Henry Delamotte (England: 1820 - 1889)

At Penllergare / the Waterfall. Image titled "Waterfall at Penllergare" exhibited 1855 Photographic Society of London (Roger Taylor, Photographs Exhibited in Britain 1839 - 1865).

Collodion negative

c.1854