An infamous declaration that there is “no Welsh art” has been firmly rebutted by a groundbreaking exhibition at the country’s national library amid growing calls for a permanent national art gallery for Wales to be created.
Peter Lord, an art historian, collector and curator of the exhibition, said the “no Welsh art” comment, made in 1950 by Llewelyn Wyn Griffith, the chair of the Welsh committee of the then Arts Council of Great Britain, reflected the received wisdom at the time. He said it was “absurd”, but the impact of the claim still lingered.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... al-gallery
And I'd not query their assertion at all, except the painting they use to illustrate their point is "A south Wales industrial landscape by Penry Williams, which is on display at the No Welsh Art exhibition at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth."
Describing Penry Williams as "Welsh" is a travesty. He has a Welsh-sounding name, he was born in Wales, his ancestry is Welsh but there it stops. Nothing else whatever associates the life of Penry Williams with Wales. Surely they could find a more convincing example than that.
eta: I apologize to an extent and I will qualify my comment. His teenage paintings from the age of 14 precede his move to study at the Royal Academy. Everything he painted beyond his teenage years was unrelated to Wales, how's that. And I'm quite sure his teenage paintings before moving to London are a long way short of qualifying him as a Welsh painter of any substance.He is a household name because of his major artworks in Rome, where he established his reputation.