As we reach the end of a busy summer of exhibitions and events I have allowed myself a brief moment of reflection on our activity over the last few months. Since June, we have installed 4 new exhibitions in the Library: ‘Joan Baker: A Retrospective’, ‘Claudia Williams: Remembering Tryweryn’, ‘Curwen: Art, Words and Music in Print’ and ‘What’s New: Recent Acquisitions‘.
I was especially delighted that we were able to host exhibitions by two of Wales’ leading female artists, Claudia Williams and Joan Baker. I have known and have been a fan of Claudia for many years, but only had the pleasure of meeting Joan for the first time at the opening of her exhibition back in July. She is a lesser-known artist, but trained under Ceri Richards and Evan Charlton and taught many prominent Welsh artists such as Peter Prendergast and Mary Lloyd Jones. At 88 she is still painting, and it was a real inspiration for me to meet a lady who has been quietly and unassumingly continuing with what she enjoys best (maybe this is the secret to a long and happy life!).
The exhibition includes a broad range of work from the 1960s to the present day, but my particular favourite has to be ‘Blue Pool’, 1979 – 80 (shown above). Although this is a painting inspired by the Glamorganshire coastline, it somehow holds a universal reminiscence of rock pooling and fish ‘n’ chips on bygone seaside holidays – a memory which will warm the cockles as the great British summer season draws to an end for another year.
Jaimie Thomas