Claudia Williams: Remembering Tryweryn

19 June - 4 September 2010

In 1965, the rural village of Capel Celyn and the Tryweryn valley near Bala were controversially drowned in order to supply water for the City of Liverpool. 45 years on, this exhibition provides a retrospective look at the terrible timeline of events leading up to the drowning of the valley, through the eyes of one of Wales’ leading artists, Claudia Williams. 

Claudia Williams was born in Purley, Surrey in 1933, and at the young age of sixteen attended Chelsea School of Art. In 1954, she married fellow artist Gwilym Prichard and settled in Llangefni, Anglesey. She has since lived in Brittany for many years before returning to Tenby, Pembrokeshire in 2000.

Throughout her career, Claudia Williams has famously explored and embraced domestic life as a subject for her work, and the intimacy in her paintings provides an insight into the private lives of the villagers of Capel Celyn.

As well as Claudia Williams’s paintings, the exhibition also includes documentary photographs by Geoff Charles and archive material from the Library’s collection.

To coincide with the exhibition The National Library will screen an hour of archive films about the drowning of Tryweryn, 23 June at the Drwm.


Claudia Williams is represented by Oriel Martin Tinney Gallery.