Shirley Jones, Nocturne for Wales (1987). Cwmparc Colliery, Rhondda Valley. (c). Shirley Jones

Shirley Jones, Llym Awel (1993). A raven picking at the dead after a battle. (c) Shirley Jones

Shirley Jones, A Thonnau Gwyllt y Môr / And the Wild Waves of the Sea (2011). Worm's Head, Gower. (c) Shirley Jones

An 'artist's book' is defined as one created or conceived by an individual artist. Some of the best contemporary examples from Wales are the works of Shirley Jones.

Born in the Rhondda Valley, and after studying English literature at the university in Cardiff, Shirley Jones undertook courses in printmaking in the early 1970s, with advanced study in printmaking at Croydon Art College in Surrey in 1975-6. She set up her own studio and began to produce her own books in 1977, and from 1983 she took the name Red Hen Press. In 1994 she moved back to Wales and established her studio in Llanhamlach, near Brecon.

Shirley Jones's books are virtually all her own work, the text often her own poems and recollections, or translations from the Welsh and even Old English, all printed on hand- or mould- made paper. The books may be bound and also housed in tailor-made boxes, all created by well-known binders. Her first productions appeared in very small numbers. For example, her first work, as a student, was Words and Prints, which appeared in 1975 and ran to just six copies. Twelve copies of the second book, Windows (1977), were produced and the third, The Same Sun, (1978), ran to twenty-five copies. Greek Dance (1980) appeared in an edition of forty, and most of Shirley Jones's later works appeared in editions of twenty-five to anything up to fifty copies. The particular attraction of her books is the illustrations, whether aquatints, etchings or mezzotints.

There has always been a great demand for Red Hen Press books in the United States of America, where over sixty institutions hold copies of Shirley Jones's books, with thirteen holding ten or more titles. In the United Kingdom, eleven institutions collect her work, including Brecknock Museum & Art Gallery, with ten or more titles held by the British Library, the National Library of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru. Copies are also to be found in libraries and universities in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and South Africa.

Amgueddfa Cymru's Library began to take note of the Red Hen Press in 1999, when it acquired Nocturne for Wales (1987), Llym Awel (1993), Falls the Shadow (1995) and Etched in Autumn (1997). The Library has acquired all her work since that date, and later purchased two of Shirley Jones's earlier books: Five Flowers for my Father (1990) and Two Moons (1991).

Thirty copies were produced of A Thonnau Gwyllt y Môr / And the Wild Waves of the Sea (2011). The book has an introductory essay and includes three aquatints and two mezzotints of the coasts and islands of Wales that accompany the poems. Of the other titles, Etched Out (2003) is the story of the people of the Epynt area of Breconshire who were moved from their homes during the Second World War, as the land was required for the military. The names of fifty farms are recorded on a pull-out mezzotint, with some of the figures depicted being based on images in St Fagans National History Museum. Some of the paper used was custom-made, making use of the red soil of the Epynt.

One of Shirley Jones's most dramatic images is to be found in Two Moons, and this mezzotint, one of nine, is to be seen on the cover of the book published to mark thirty years of the Red Hen Press: Shirley Jones and the Red Hen Press: a Bibliography, compiled by Ronald D. Patkus, Vassar College, University of Vermont (2013).

Morpheus

Sir William Goscombe John (1860 - 1952)

Icarus

Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854 - 1934)

In 1881, William Goscombe John assisted in creating the sculptures for Cardiff Castle's Animal Wall

Edwardian Wales, newly wealthy from coal, iron and steel, provided rich opportunities for a sculptor. William Goscombe John's public monuments can be found all over Wales, but nowhere more than in his native Cardiff. He also modelled the prize medals still awarded by the National Eisteddfod today.

Making his way

He was born William John in Cardiff in March 1860. He assumed the name Goscombe from a Gloucestershire village near his mother's old home. His father Thomas John was a woodcarver in the workshops set up by Lord Bute for the restoration of Cardiff Castle. William joined his father at the age of 14, while also studying drawing at Cardiff School of Art.

In 1881 he went to London as a pupil assistant to Thomas Nicholls, the sculptor responsible for the Castle's Animal Wall. He continued his studies at the Kennington School of Art and, from 1884, at the Royal Academy Schools, where he was taught naturalistic modelling in clay in the French manner introduced in London in the 1870s by Jules Dalou.

He was an outstanding student, and travelled widely. He spent a year in Paris, including a period in Rodin's studio. In 1890 he returned to London and settled in St John's Wood.

His sculpture Morpheus, shown in the Paris Salon of 1892, clearly shows Rodin's influence.

The 'New Sculpture'

British sculptors of John's generation were trying to make sculpture more dynamic through the vigorously naturalistic representation of the human body. They represent the final flowering of a sculptural tradition that had its roots in the Renaissance, and was revitalised by Rodin and his contemporaries in mid nineteenth-century France. John followed the success of Morpheus with a statue of John the Baptist for Lord Bute, and by a group of life-size nudes including Boy at Play and The Elf. These show complete mastery of anatomical form.

By the end of the 1890s Goscombe John had firmly established himself, exhibiting his work both nationally and internationally. He was beginning to win big public commissions and in the years leading up to the First World War he was extremely busy.

Wales and the Empire

Although based in London, John was careful to position himself as Wales's national sculptor. In 1916 he contributed the central marble figure St David Blessing the People to a group of ten figures made for Cardiff City Hall. He also received commissions for portraits from the leading Welshmen of the day. John may have built his career on local patronage, but he attracted work from across the Empire, such as his tomb in Westminster Abbey to Conservative Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, and his equestrian statue of King Edward VII in Capetown.

His first major public sculpture was the King's Regiment memorial (1905) in the centre of Liverpool, incorporating soldiers from the regiment's history, including the vast Drummer Boy, which is his best-known work.

The Welsh and the Imperial came together in the commission for the regalia for the investiture of the future Edward VIII as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle in 1911. John designed a crown, a ring, a sceptre and a sword that contained a 'Welsh' iconography of dragons, daffodils and Celtic interlace.

John had little sympathy with what he termed the 'Easter Island' style of modern sculpture, with its emphasis on direct carving in stone. Critical opinion was already beginning to leave him behind by 1914, but the First World War tragically brought new commissions for memorials, including many in Wales.

Goscombe John and the National Museum

Goscombe John was one of the founding fathers of Amgueddfa Cymru. He served on the governing Council for over forty years, and played a major role in establishing the future direction of the art collection. As well as a complete representation of his own work, his gifts to the Museum included work by many of his fellows in the New Sculpture movement, among them the primary cast of Alfred Gilbert's Icarus, and by many other artists he admired.

Figure 1: Silver punch ladle with mahogany handle, by Dorothy Mills and Thomas Sarbitt, London, 1752-3.

Figure 2: Silver gilt punch bowl designed by Robert Adam and made by Thomas Heming, London, 1771-2.

Punch was first drunk in Britain in the 1650s. This was around the same time that tea, coffee and hot chocolate became available. By the turn of the eighteenth century, it was an incredibly popular drink.

Making punch

Punch was made using a mixture of expensive imported ingredients. The alcohol content was provided by rum or brandy, to which sugar, citrus fruit, spices – usually grated nutmeg – and water were added.

The Punch Bowl

Using an elegant ladle, punch was served from large communal bowls into individual glasses (Figure 1). One of the most important punch bowls in Amgueddfa Cymru’s collection is that designed by Robert Adam for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn (Figure 2). It was commissioned to celebrate the success of Sir Watkin's horse, Fop, at the Chester Races and would have been displayed prominently on the sideboard at his fashionable London home.

Punch was often drunk at gatherings of clubs and societies, usually held in taverns, coffee houses, or special punch-houses (Figure 3). These were almost exclusively attended by men. Drinking punch seems to have been a highly sociable act that strengthened social ties. A letter published in 1736 describes this eloquently:

Figure 3: Earthenware punch bowl by the Cambrian Pottery, Swansea, about 1800-1810. It is inscribed 'B, HAWKINS, SHIP SWAN, LONDON', suggesting it was used at a tavern or punch-house.

Figure 4: Delftware punch bowl inscribed 'Edward Jones Scoole Master 1751', probably Liverpool, 1751.

Figure 5: Large salt-glazed stoneware goblet, possibly by Mortlake, c. 1794-5.

Punch bowls were made to commemorate special events; they were decorated with the names of guilds or societies, or masculine symbols such as ships. An interesting example in Amgueddfa Cymru’s collection is inscribed ‘Edward Jones Scoole Master 1751’ (Figure 4). It has a painting of a school teacher and his pupils reading together. It is easy to imagine such a personal object being commissioned by Edward Jones, or perhaps given to him as a gift.

Raucous and uncivilised parties:

During the first half of the eighteenth century, there was widespread alarm about the dangers of alcoholism, particularly resulting from the widespread availability of cheap, home-distilled gin. Excessive punch drinking was often associated with bad behaviour.

Excessive drinking in general was often linked with moral decline, and punch parties were usually satirised by contemporary artists as raucous and uncivilised. William Hogarth’s A Midnight Modern Conversation, published in 1732/33, is perhaps the best known illustration of a punch party. It was immensely popular and was soon reproduced on punch bowls and other vessels for consuming and serving alcohol (Figure 5).

Eighteenth century binge drinking

Old Bailey records often support the linking of excessive punch drinking with unsociable, even criminal behaviour. This includes stealing expensive punch bowls from public houses and people’s homes and sharing a bowl of punch with a victim before swindling them.

From around the 1750s, punch also began to be served from porcelain and earthenware punch-pots. These are very similar in form and sometimes in decoration to teapots, but are much larger (Figure 6). Unlike open punch bowls, punch pots enabled the drink to be served in a controlled manner by one person – just like tea. This mediated form of serving might have been considered more civilised and refined than communal punch bowls, where people could help themselves and easily drink to excess.

Punch drinking was at its most popular during the mid-eighteenth century, but it continued to be enjoyed into the nineteenth century. A fine earthenware punch bowl was made for John Richardson by the Cambrian Pottery in 1845, the same year that he served as Mayor of Swansea (Figure 7). Interestingly, he commissioned the bowl as a birthday gift for his infant grandson and it is decorated with several Richardson coats of arms. Part of the inscription reads ‘GAILY STILL OUR MOMENTS ROLL, WHILST WE QUAFF THE FLOWING BOWL’.