Photographs of Radnorshire from the P B Abery Collection

21 March 2009 - 14 August 2009

For a period of 50 years the photographer Percy Benzie Abery (1877–1948) made a record of every aspect of life in the counties surrounding his studio in Builth Wells. He produced an enormous body of work ranging from studio portraits, wedding photographs, postcards and presswork through to landscapes and still lifes. He also captured a way of life by recording town and country events and activities throughout Mid-Wales and the Border Counties during the first half of the 20th century.

This exhibition is a collection of some of the photographs P B Abery took in the Welsh county of Radnorshire and some he acquired from his contemporaries. What makes them so exceptional, in addition to their historical value, is that they are very beautiful images. In his own work, Abery showed clarity of vision and composition that gave many of his photographs the quality of being painted. It is possible that Abery may have acquired negatives attributed to other photographers such as Robert Newton Heyworth, therefore it is often difficult to authenticate photographs within his collection. Nevertheless, these images were clearly very important to Abery as a record of life in his local area.

The photographs seen here represent a small selection from the thousands of images and negatives held in The National Library of Wales’ collection.

John Welson

Links

NLW on Flickr CommonsP B Abery collection on the Digital Mirror