Professional Artists in Wales Exhibit at Rhondda Heritage Park Gallery from 28 September until 18 November

[Pictured above: Rhyl Harbour, a painting by Dr. Ivor Davies, a member of the Welsh Group. Ifor Davies looks at the background of a picture which features many of the grey, stark characteristics of a typical Lowry picture but also a greater element of colour. He takes Lowry's work as the inspiration to create his own painting of the scene. It took a great deal of persuasion with Ifor Davies to do this, who is not a great admirer of Lowry. To change Ifor's mind, he was taken to Lowry’s hometown of Salford, near Manchester and the impressive Lowry Salford Quays Centre. Rhyl Harbour was painted at a difficult time in Lowry’s life, some time after his mother’s death in 1939. As a child, Lowry had spent many a summer holiday in the Welsh seaside town, and that may explain why it has more colour than his more well-known industrial landscapes. However, loneliness and desolation are evident in this seascape too, particularly in the darkening sky. (quoted from http://www.s4c.co.uk/bydoliw/ e_lowry.shtml)]

Welsh Group Artists Exhibition

The Welsh Group, the senior organisation of professional artists in Wales, are set to hold an exhibition of their work at Rhondda Heritage Park Gallery from 28 September until 18 November.

The Group was founded as the South Wales Group almost 60 years ago and as its membership grew to take in artists from all over Wales the name was changed to the Welsh Group in 1975.

Its members include many well known names including Ivor Davies who was awarded the MBE for services to Welsh art in the New Year's Honours List and over the years some of the best-known artists in the Principality have exhibited with the Group.



Included among the exhibitors in the exhibition will be an unusually large number of new members, who were all elected at the last annual general meeting of the Group; Paul Brewer, Wendy Earle, Veronica Gibson, Chris Griffin, Antonia Spowers, Claudia Williams, Thomasin Toohie and Pip Wolf.

The Group has a membership of around 40 but the last two years have been particularly sad ones for Welsh art with the deaths of a number of distinguished figures, either current members or artists long associated with the Welsh Group.

They included Sir Kyffin Williams, Peter Prendergast, Bert Isaac, Tony Goble, Peter Bailie and Laurie Williams.



These artists helped create a new reputation for Wales as a centre of powerful landscape painting and other artistic activity when, not so long ago, there was a tendency to claim that the nation had no visual arts tradition.



They changed the face of Welsh art - Tony Goble and Peter Bailie not with landscapes but with works of mythic imagination and, where Bailie was concerned, witty constructions.

Although the passing of these dominant figures leaves a gap difficult to fill, the new members of the Group demonstrate the widening range of Welsh art today.

In particular the sculptor Antonia Spowers is unusual in the variety of materials she makes use of in her sculptures and constructions, including glass, polished metal, burnt wood, wire and feathers, and unusually there is often a political point at the back of her inventions.



Pip Woolf experiments in her paintings with pigments which she extracts herself from earths and minerals.

There are landscape painters among the newcomers including Veronica Gibson and Chris Griffin, but their approach is very different to that of the older generation. It should prove to be an interesting and unpredictable exhibition.

The Welsh Group exhibition can be seen at Rhondda Heritage Park from Friday 28 September until 18 November.

The Gallery is open daily between 10am-6pm until the end of September but closed on Mondays throughout November. Admission is free.

Rhondda Heritage Park

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

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