After a decent morning catching up on work – uninterrupted by calls and emails, except those from fellow nerds – it’s time to join our guests for a light lunch in Pen Dinas. This afternoon we’ve a double bill of exhibition openings: new paintings by Claudia Williams and a stunning display of artists’ prints from the Curwen Studio.
The Curwen Studio, based first in London and then in Cambridgeshire, has an interesting history. It started in 1863 as the Curwen Press, specialising in tonic sol-fa music printing, but developed in the twentieth century into a unique combination of art print business and workshop, bringing together some of the leading artists of their day, including many from Wales including Ceri Richards, Joseph Herman and Kyffin Williams, and printers, especially lithographers, of the highest quality. We have the company of two of the Studio’s leading figures, Stanley Jones and Michael Adams, to speak at the launch.
Claudia Williams is one of the Library’s oldest friends and has exhibited with us many times. Her colourful scenes of family life, especially of women and children on the beach, have endeared her to many, but this exhibition deals with a darker theme, the drowning of Capel Celyn by Liverpool Council in 1965 to form the Tryweryn reservoir. The politics of Tryweryn still resonate today in the Welsh psyche, but Claudia’s paintings imagine the human cost of the village’s destruction: they conduct a kind of conversation with the contemporary photographs of Tryweryn by Geoff Charles, hung alongside.
The Council Chamber is full to overflowing. Stanley, Michael and Claudia all speak to an intent audience. A big array of flowers appears for Claudia. Then, something unexpected: members of Côr ABC, a local choir with a strong Library contingent, come forward to sing two unaccompanied ensemble pieces and two solos. They all perform quite beautifully, their songs carefully selected to reflect the exhibition themes: one of the solos is Harri Webb’s haunting ‘Colli iaith’, with its mention of Tryweryn. Altogether a more emotional occasion than many will have expected.
Afterwards, in the Gregynog Gallery, photographs, and conversations with friends old and new. Michael tells some hilarious Kyffin anecdotes, unrepeatable here (shouldn’t someone be collecting and recording them?) and recalls his earlier connections with Brian Epstein, George Harrison and John Lennon (the latter represented in the exhibition by a print). Claudia and her husband and fellow painter Gwilym Prichard tell of their time in France and Tenby.
Finally, a chat with Elin Jones, Assembly minister and our local AM, about the serious dangers to the Library and its future as a result of impending funding cuts. Elin is a great supporter of the Library and it’s good to know that we have such an understanding and sympathetic person in government.
The work of the Library in supporting artists in Wales, and in buying and displaying their work, goes back a hundred years, and as many comments today make clear, it’s work that is warmly appreciated, by artists and their audiences. I only hope that it can continue in future. But at the moment that future looks as darkly uncertain as the waters of Tryweryn.
Andrew Green, Librarian