It has been programmed to coincide with the Gower Festival of Music and the Arts 2024, which takes place in July. Celebrating Gower as an inspiration for artists adds a special local interest to this year’s festival.
The Gower Peninsula was the first place in Britain to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and its dramatic rocky coastline, beaches, hills and valleys provide outdoor leisure and enjoyment for Swansea residents and visitors alike.
Tourist views of its top attractions, particularly Three Cliffs Bay and Rhossili, are widely publicised. Both local and visiting artists, however, have responded to Gower and its scenery with more personal approaches. These range from industrial subjects in northeast Gower by Ceri Richards and Archie Rhys Griffiths, to summer beach scenes and watercolour landscape sketches by Will Evans and the richly coloured expressive visions of Glenys Cour.
From Cedric Morris, visiting North Gower in the 1930s, painting its hills and farms and looking across the water to the chimneys of industrial Loughor, to Czech émigré painter, Ernest Neuschul, being moved by the strenuous work of the cockle pickers of Penclawdd, the exhibition will explore farmland, moors and commons of the interior of the peninsula, the beautiful marshes of the Loughor Estuary and the spectacular cliffs and coves overlooking the Bristol Channel.
The display features work from the Glynn Vivian permanent collection and selected artworks in this exhibition have been loaned from Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, as part of the National Contemporary Art Gallery for Wales initiative, Celf ar y Cyd.
