In celebration of St David’s Day, 2023, Liss Llewellyn is delighted to present a special online exhibition on the subject of Welsh Art.

Wales is a country with a proud history in the visual arts, and has produced a number of important figures within the Modern British canon. These include artist’s such as Augustus (1878-1961) and Gwen John (1876-1939), as well as Ceri (1903-1971) and Frances Richards (1903-1985), but also a number of influential figures whose names might bely their Celtic roots. This is true of Swansea-born Albert de Belleroche (1864-1944), who is widely considered to be the first Welsh Impressionist painter, in spite of the French-Huguenot epithet inherited through his father, the Marquis de Belleroche.

With its precipitous slopes, dark cwms, and scattered relics, the landscape of Wales has inspired a great number of artists, even if they were born outside of Cambria. John Piper (1903-1972) was one such artist, and he recorded the mountains of Snowdonia and the castles of North-West Wales with a great and brooding vitality during numerous visits with his wife, Myfanwy. Mary Adshead (1904-1995) was another artist who made frequent painting expeditions to Wales. During the War she spent summer holidays with her children at Barmouth, a seaside resort on Cardigan Bay, and captured quaint scenes such as The Landlady’s Daughters.

This selection also includes artworks representative of Welsh national identity, from the daffodils of Frank Bramley’s (1857-1915) delicate still life, to the country’s beloved sport of rugby, depicted here by Joyce Bidder’s (1906-1999) The Tackle.