As Nicholas Thornton explained, the exhibition features the largest selection of Gwen John’s work to be displayed together. It marks several anniversaries, including 150 years since Gwen John’s birth and 100 years since her first solo exhibition and will be touring to Scotland and the United States after Cardiff.

The exhibition was arranged chronologically, allowing viewers to follow her development from early representational work to her almost modernist later work. At several points in the exhibition, the curators, led by senior curator Lucy Wood, emphasised Gwen John’s focus on painting and drawing the same subject by displaying several different versions together. For instance, they showed two paintings of her room in Meudon, a suburb of Paris (‘A Corner of her room in Paris’, both 1907) alongside one another, each version incorporating slight variations – one with the window open, one with the window closed, for example. Other pairings included portraits of women reading (1910 & 11) or of girls (where she used herself as model), one clothed, the other nude (1910 & 11). And there were of course the numerous paintings of nuns and of Mère Poussepin in similar pose (1913-20) and the sequence of paintings showing a convalescent (c1919 & 20). All these gave viewers an insight into Gwen John’s working methods as well as her aims; she would paint the same subject over and over but always brought something different to each piece. Each version was as much a record of a particular moment, a particular way of seeing, as her feverous urge to hone her craft and technique.

In addition, the exhibition highlighted Gwen John’s works on paper, something as important to her as her works on canvas. The museum’s unique and extensive holding of more than 2,000 of her works on paper provided the curators with a considerable resource. Paper did of course represent a less expensive and more accessible material for Gwen John although, for the museum, works on paper obviously provide conservation challenges. Fascinatingly, the curators chose some works not originally intended for public viewing. These private studies revealed much about Gwen John’s artistic process and her tendency to draw everything around her – her cat, trees, landscapes and street scenes.

Nicholas Thornton also drew attention to another curious feature of Gwen John’s working method. She appeared to have developed her own mysterious colour system, using codes of numbers and letters to mark different intended colours. An example of this was found on a drawing of flowers in a vase on the back of a watercolour street scene. This piece was displayed on a plinth with glass on each side so you could view both the front and the back. Gwen John would often reuse paper, as well as packaging, even if they already had drawings on them – again, emphasising her dedication to her craft even when she couldn’t afford more expensive materials.

As I mentioned, the exhibition takes viewers on a journey from her earlier representational work (such as her works executed at the Slade) to her later, highly reflective work influenced by modernism. I found it interesting that in her earlier works she named her models, whereas in her later work, subjects appear less important than the way they are portrayed. It is as though subjects become a vehicle for experimentation and artistic expression. The exhibition also uncovers her religious commitment (she converted to Catholicism in 1913) and the way her art became an integral part of her spiritual practice. She appeared to see herself as a spiritual conduit, almost mystically aspiring to the divine. Indeed, Gwen John referred to herself as ‘God’s Little Artist’, viewing her painting as a form of prayer and spiritual devotion. I was interested that she described her artistic approach as being ‘recueilli’ – contemplative, meditative, focused – suggesting how she created her art from a silent inner peace. Her art appeared to become a devotional act as she tried to capture the ‘essential life’ of her subjects.

For me, this brilliantly and thoughtfully curated exhibition drew attention to Gwen John’s extraordinary commitment. I found it inspiring to witness her tenacity and dedication to her artistic expression and practice, especially at a time when female artists were less valued and women marginalised. CASW members felt lucky to have been offered a private tour of the exhibition and learn so much from Nicholas Thornton about her life and creative process. For me, this exhibition was an utter triumph.

After our tour, I spoke with another CASW member, Sian Llewellyn Williams, who added her own thoughts on the importance to her personally of Gwen John and the exhibition.

“I grew up with Gwen John – not literally obviously – but growing up in West Wales and having an interest in art, I was conscious first of Augustus John having been born in Haverfordwest and then brought up in Tenby, very much my neck of the woods.  Then (it’s always a ‘then’ for Gwen) the awareness of the quieter sister.  So later on, as a student, I would seek out the Gwen Johns in Cardiff and London and feel some geographical connection with her.  Probably more so, because culture in Carmarthenshire was always singing, not art.  I wonder if that is why the siblings escaped from Tenby.

Then many years on, my cousin, a professor at the Slade School of Art, took me for a guided tour of the school.  Together we walked up the staircase with its wooden handrail and together recalled that these were the stairs that Augustus and Gwen had used.  Little had changed.

So, to see the finest retrospective of Gwen’s work at the National Museum in the company of curator, Nicholas Thornton, brought back happy recollections as did the opportunity to see so many of Gwen’s works together, thereby giving them context within her life, starting with a scene at the beach in Tenby.”

Clive Hicks-Jenkins Interview PART TWO

The ‘Gwrach/Witch’ Exhibition

Renn: This ties us in well with talking about the Gwrach/Witch Exhibition because I think you wrote about it on your blog that it’s been essentially a sort of a 15-year project.

Clive: Yeah, it’s like putting a paper boat onto a stream and thinking where is it going to go.

Renn: It would be nice to hear more about the exhibition – where the paper boat began and how it all evolved.

Clive: I know exactly where it started. I can show you. [Clive gets out a book from his bookshelf].

Renn: Oh yeah, you did mention this on your blog, Toby Twirl.

Clive: Toby Twirl, The Little Pig.

This is a replacement for the book I had when I was a child but these are the first books I can remember as a child learning to read. This particular edition, ‘cause it was an annual, is the one I remember so well and that’s where it all began.

Renn: Is it specifically the story?

Clive: It’s the witch.

Renn:  Do you mean the story or is it more the image of the witch that struck you?

Clive: It was the idea that you could be going through life and everything is fine and dandy and you are with your friends. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, something happens that changes the trajectory completely and y’know – I would have been four or five –it was the physical image of the witch which caught my imagination.

That witch stuck in my head and it kind of formed a fascination with the archetype of the witch. It’s an archetype that I now recognise, as a cultural historian myself, that whilst witches are frightening, they are also incredibly seductive. We all like to look at Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmations because she’s so evil and so mean but she looks so great. Physically she’s mesmerising.

Witches have crept up in my work in the theatre. I think I directed at least three productions of The Wizard of Oz and I only ever did them because I wanted to work with the witch…

[Renn and Clive both laugh]

…because the witch in The Wizard of Oz is so good.

A few years back, I did a whole set of Hansel and Gretel plates and they were quite dark. I wasn’t really consciously thinking about the way I was changing the story to fit my narrative, to fit what I wanted to put onto these plates. The witch was quite funny. She was kind of mumsy with a headscarf and a handbag – I think I was channelling Margaret Thatcher. There were symbols. I’d reduced the whole story to symbols – an oven with a pair of legs sticking out of it, a cat, some gingerbread, really just riffing and playing. They never really went anywhere. They just ended up in our kitchen.

Hansel and Gretel is a not a fairy tale. It’s a folk tale and it’s been changed by subsequent retellings. If you go back to the original story it’s odd and it’s unresolved and you know this is a child murderess [Gretel], she kills an old lady. You are led to believe that it’s because their lives were in danger – she had to gird up her loins and kill someone. They didn’t just escape. When they get home, the evil mother who has betrayed them has gone. She’s dead. And how did that happen? It’s all very unresolved and you can be under no illusion that the witch kills and cooks children. By the time that turns into an opera – by Englebert Humperdinck (his sister Adelheid wrote the libretto) – the witch is still baking things but she’s baking lovely gingerbread babies that decorate the house and once she is killed, all the gingerbread babies come back to life again. That’s what Humperdinck wanted for an opera to be successful at Christmas and bring lots of people into the theatre. So, no eviscerating children and cooking up stews – it’s all gingerbread babies who get brought back again after the witch is killed. People think that’s the story of Hansel and Gretel.

So I made those tin plates. There was a magazine article, a picture book, a toy theatre for Benjamin Pollock’s toy shop and a stage production which was a big deal – two years of work, opened at the Cheltenham Music Festival, toured the country, ended up at the Barbican. Simon Armitage asked me to find a publisher to publish the libretto as a poem and to illustrate it. That book won me the V&A Illustration Award 2020.

Renn: That must have been a full-circle moment with you going to the V&A as a child, loving it and then winning an award all those years later for your work.

Clive: Yes, yes! It was great. The only thing that was a minus was that it was covid year which meant that everything was delayed. I had to chase them up for my prize money and my prize! But it won me a lot of credit.

At the end of that, I just had the feeling that I had so much material. I hadn’t intended it to be like that. I felt that there was something there that needed to be protected. With so much material, I felt the only way to make something of it would be to do an exhibition.

The exhibition grew in stature and ambition through the five year period from when it first was agreed to when it was finally put up in the gallery. The curators really got on board with it – lots of discussions of how we would do it before the designer, Meriel, and Simon Costin, acting as consultant joined us. It went from something that might have been that big *hand gesture showing small distance* to something that was quite extensive.

Renn: So, was the exhibition about your art practice and how you work or was it just the work itself?

Clive:  I think that it showed somebody taking the story of Hansel and Gretel and riffing on it, turning it into an orchestral piece. The curators cleverly led  people through so you could see the trajectory of the work from the beginning. There was a Welsh dresser with the enamel plates on and then there were the drawings that became the magazine illustrations that became the picture book that became the toy theatre…. It also became a journey because there were so many filmed elements. We were able to take all the animations – all the filmed elements – that I’d produced for the stage production and project those onto big screens. It was kind of an immersive world of a fairy tale that is sometimes known as Hansel and Gretel…but we didn’t want to call it that as we didn’t want people to think it was a kiddies’ show.

Renn: I love the name ‘Gwrach/Witch’

Clive: Yes, it bridged a gap that enabled us to get a different kind of audience and children did go but they just didn’t go expecting sugar icing. We wanted there to be darkness and there was quite a lot of darkness. You know I love horror and I love humour and I love old horror movies and horror stories and I like that sort of mix of fairy tale with horror that makes you laugh out loud but then makes you go cold. That’s what this was.

Renn: It feels like a high point of your artistic journey.

Clive: I don’t think I will ever have such an enjoyable exhibition again.

Renn: Never say never.

Clive: Well, I think that it went through so many iterations that it would be hard to repeat that. I think it was a one-off and I loved doing it and I loved the people who I met on the journey.

After the interview, Clive took me to his studio. I was able to see various illustrations, paintings and other artworks he’d created as well as a plethora of vintage toys, puppets and other objects which inspire and comfort Clive. A joy to see.

It was a privilege learning about this fascinating artist’s life. He is someone who has really wrung out as much as he can from his experiences, both in the physical world and in his imagination, to feed his considerable creativity.

Helen Scutt, the Garden Director of Aberglasney, welcomed CASW members along with the artist in residence, Andrew Douglas-Forbes.

Unfortunately, the abysmal weather conditions hindered exploration of Aberglasney’s garden, leaving only the covered atrium at the back of the house for members to experience. Known as ‘The Ninfarium’, it has been redesigned to become an ideal habitat for tropical and Mediterranean plants such as the Bird of Paradise Flower, rare orchids and some magnificent palms. The house itself is undergoing extensive restoration and members were guided to the first-floor to view the detail and skills involved in the work.  In one of the rooms, the original decorative plaster covings and cornices were displayed. As CASW’s secretary, Chris Childs, enthused, these ‘could have been an installation in their own right!’

The plaster covings and cornices could have been an installation in their own right.

Aberglasney resident artist, Andrew Douglas-Forbes, proved a very enthusiastic guide. Members had the rare privilege of visiting the garret-like studio in the attic. He shared with us many of his watercolours and sketches which will soon be available in the Garden shop. Andrew’s role also extends to designing the labels for Aberglasney products for sale such as their gin, coffee and greetings cards.

After a picnic lunch (sheltered under the marquee of the Garden Café), members headed over to Cliver Hicks-Jenkins’ exhibition Gwrach/Witch at Oriel Myrddin.

Members were greeted by David Wilson, the interim director of the gallery, Elaine Cabuts, the CASW Executive member who had arranged the day, and Isobel Davies, CASW’s vice-chair. Clive himself – a long-standing CASW member – guided members through his brilliant exhibition, the culmination of 15 years’ work on the fairytale ‘Hansel and Gretel’ in which he developed his own interpretations of the tale in a multitude of media. The exhibition included original artworks, illustrations as well as animations, all presented in an immersive way with low lighting and suitably ominous music, creating a spellbinding atmosphere befitting of this dark yet beloved tale.

Alongside the wooden toys and puppets collected by Clive – a special interest of his –  the puppets used in the live performance of Hansel and Gretel: A Nightmare In Eight Scenes were also on display. This was a creative collaboration with Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, who wrote the libretto. The work premiered at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 2018 directed by Clive himself with music by Matthew Kaner. CASW member, Sian Davies, commented that the puppets were ‘utterly charming and child-like, which made the realisation that the true Hansel and Gretel tale did not end well even more poignant’.

Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ puppets were utterly charming and child-like… 

In the evening, members attended a very entertaining talk between Clive and Sean Vicary. They both discussed the ideas behind the exhibition as well as both of their respective art influences. As part of their creative output, both had worked with animation and found some common themes between them. Jean Cocteau turned out to be a shared influence on both artists. For Sean, Orpheus was the film which he found the most overwhelming whereas Clive confessed that when he saw Beauty and the Beast as a 14-year-old, it changed his life.

Despite the wild wind and heavy rain, CASW members found the Carmarthenshire visit both highly enjoyable and informative. They felt privileged to be given exclusive access to artists and art projects giving them a sense of the range of creative work going on in Wales at the moment.

This is CASW’s first blog! Please look out for the next blog in our series of regular blogs which will feature an interview with Clive Hicks-Jenkins. He discusses his life, art practice and personal interests in his lovely home in the hills near Abergavenny.