Ceri Richards Themes and Variations - A Select Retrospective.
27th July- 27th October 2002. National Museum of Wales - Cardiff.

SEE SPECIAL BOOK OFFER BELOW...

I have waited for a lifetime for the book "Ceri Richards". So for those who admire his work 2002 is a year to celebrate. For not only do we have the book "Ceri Richards" by Mel Gooding, but also the first major exhibition of Ceri's work for over 20 years. The exhibition was launched to the Press on Friday 26th July, in a dimly lit gallery, where a gaggle of headphoned journalists were listening to Iwan Bala being interviewed and translated into English. At question time fellow artist Ivor Davies one of the few fellow artists present, was the only person to respond.

Mel Gooding - Author of the Ceri Richards book, at the press launch.

Although a Welsh speaker born in Dunvant near the Gower in Swansea, Ceri like fellow artist Alfred Janes was for nearly the whole of his career, a Welsh exile living and working in London.

Iwan Bala at the press launch.

His major works were influenced by the poetry of Dylan Thomas and the Vernon Watkins, also from Swansea, the music of Beethoven and Debussy, as well as his earlier contemporary European Artists Picasso, Matisse and Ernst. Ceri Richards was truly an artist of international standing and certainly one of the greatest to emerge from Wales.

A Select Retrospective is an accurate description of the exhibition, split as it is into five thematic sections, with notable exeptions such as the 'Rape of the Sabines' series. Some might think this a pity; however the exhibition does succeed in showing how Ceri worked and re-worked ideas both as paintings and drawings. Developing an idea much as Dylan agonised over the construction of a poem.

My first encounter with the work of Ceri Richards was at the Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea and it was while working as student at the Reference Library, opposite that I discovered the catalytic relationship he had with the poetry of Dylan and Vernon. The paintings had a profound effect on me. They were the reason that I began my series of portraits of the 'Swansea Gang'. Travelling to London to meet Ceri in 1966. He was then working in Edith Grove. At the same time I Photographed Alfred Janes for the first time.

Mel Gooding is to be congratulated for his epic volume and the National Museum too for what is an exhibition of historical importance.

Gold Medal Winner Ifor Davies pictured during question times at the press launch.

In view of all this, it seems a little derisory to charge a £3.50 entrance fee, for what is one of one of the greatest 'Jewels in the Crown' of Welsh (Art) Culture, which is in its way truly priceless.

The exhibition is accompanied by a forty page illustrated catalogue, which also contains a CD of Poetry by Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins and music by Beethoven and Debussy, produced by students of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. The Catalogue costs ****.

A separate review of Mel Gooding's Book "Ceri Richards" will be in the Welsh Books Section in the near future.

Bernard Mitchell, Welsh Arts Archive.

SPECIAL OFFER FROM DYLANS BOOKSTORE, SWANSEA
Roberto Sanesei : The Graphic Works of Ceri Richards. Printed and published in Milan 1973. Translated by Richard Burns. Large 4to, profusely illustrated in colour and monochrome.
Out of Print, an invaluable reference work and very hard to find. We have a
few copies only @ £150.

WITH TWO FINE SIGNED LITHOGRAPHS
ELEGIAC SONNET. A large and stunning portfolio, sumptously produced in the Immagini e Testi series , edited by Luigi Majno and Roberto Sanesi for M'Arte Edizioni Milan 1970.
Each portfolio contains a lithographed reproduction of Vernon Watkins
original manuscript of his unpublished elegy for Dylan Thomas and two
beautiful original Ceri Richards Lithographs, numbered signed and dated. The edition was of 149 copies only printed bt the Curwen Press.
We have the last few remaining portfolios of this late, and great work and can offer them at £750.