Museum Blogs

Introduction: The Journey of Gwen John’s Studio Collection

In 1976, one hundred years after Gwen John’s birth, the National Museum of Wales purchased nearly 1,000 works by the artist from her nephew, Edwin. This collection comprised a handful of oil paintings and hundreds of works on paper that were all part of John’s studio collection.

What Is a Studio Collection?

A studio collection is all the artworks left in an artist’s studio after their death.

When Gwen John died suddenly in September 1939, she left all her property, including her unsold artworks, to her nephew. War had just been declared in Europe and Edwin hurried across the Channel to gather what he could and bring it to the UK for safekeeping, returning after the war to collect the rest. The collection now belonging to Amgueddfa Cymru is the bulk of what remained in Gwen John’s studio, though many works were sold at Matthiesen’s Gallery on Bond Street in London in 1946 and in subsequent exhibitions in the 1950s and 1960s.

How the Collection Came to Amgueddfa Cymru

By purchasing the remaining studio collection, the museum became home to the largest public collection of John’s work anywhere in the world. The studio collection at Amgueddfa Cymru includes over 900 drawings as well as six oil paintings and a number of sketchbooks. Before the museum purchased the studio collection, it owned just three drawings and four oil paintings by Gwen John.

Unfinished Paintings That Reveal Her Technique

The Gwen John studio collection gives an insight into the many different subjects the artist depicted and the different styles with which she experimented. John is best known for her close-toned oil paintings of women and girls seated in quiet interiors. The examples in the studio collection are unfinished, giving us an insight into her painting technique. For example, Girl in Profile (NMW A 148) shows where John has scraped back the paint surface where the girl’s hairbow would have been. Presumably, she was unhappy with her first attempt and scraped it away to try painting it again. Study of a Seated Nude (NMW A 4928) is unusual because it shows John has worked from the outer of the edges inwards, leaving the face of the sitter until last. Both paintings give us a glimpse of the unusual chalky ground (the pale base layer she put on the canvas first before painting over it in oil paint). She mixed this herself using a unique recipe for which we still don’t know the exact ingredients.

A Vast Body of Drawings and Works on Paper

The most notable feature of the studio collection though is the sheer number of drawings and watercolours in it. While John was more focused in her choice of subjects and technique in her paintings, her works on paper are much more varied. They include landscapes and street views, studies of flowers and trees, sketches of cats and horses, and drawings after portrait photographs. Many works are made in series or sets which repeat the same subject. These can be almost identical (NMW A 15751, NMW A 15752, NMW A 15753), or vary in colour and medium (NMW A 15303, NMW A 15304, NMW A 15305).

Recurring Subjects: Churches, Figures, and Everyday Life

The most frequent subject in her works on paper are figures in church (NMW A 3811). She drew the congregants of her local parish church in Meudon, then copied out these images again and again in her studio before adding watercolour and white pigment (NMW A 3611). The single image repeated the most often is Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and her sister, Céline, as children (NMW A 3536, NMW A 15563, NMW A 15565). It was inspired by a photograph of them, of which Gwen John owned a copy. In each version she drew, John changed the composition slightly, adding and removing curtains, wallpaper, and toys from the background, playing with scale, and changing the colours and patterns of every surface. John used much more vivid colours in her works on paper than she ever did in her oil paintings.

What the Collection Reveals About Gwen John

The Gwen John studio collection gives us an insight into the artistic practice of one of Wales’s best-loved artists. Containing unfinished oil paintings, sketchbooks, and works on paper, it shows how methodical and experimental she was. It also gives us a glimpse into her world: the places where she lived, her friends and neighbours, her pets, her interest in nature and religion, and her art training. This collection is an invaluable resource, befitting of one of the most famous Welsh artists of the twentieth century.

As the National Slate Museum continues its major redevelopment programme, an important community of residents remains very much at the heart of our plans - our bats! 

Working closely with ecologist Carola Hoskins of SK Environmental Solutions ltd, we’ve been carefully monitoring and protecting ten known bat roosts across the site. 

These roosts are home mainly to common and soprano pipistrelle bats, two of the smallest bat species in the UK. 

Seven of the roosts are used by individual males or non-breeding females, but one is particularly special - a soprano pipistrelle maternity roost that supports around 65 bats at its Summer peak.

A Safe Place for New Life

Although the colony is currently winter hibernating elsewhere, by late April the bats will begin to return. 

At this time around 35 females will settle into the maternity roost and by late May or early June, each Mother gives birth to a single pup doubling the colony size almost overnight. While 65 bats might sound like a lot, it’s a relatively small maternity colony for soprano pipistrelles, making every individual important.

One of Nature’s Cleverest Adaptations

“Bats have many remarkable traits, but one of the most fascinating is delayed fertilisation." said Carola. "Female bats mate in autumn, but they delay pregnancy until spring, storing sperm through the winter months. This ensures that pups are born at exactly the right time when warmth, food, and safe roosting conditions give them the best chance of survival. It’s one of the many reasons these tiny mammals are so well adapted to life in the UK."

Conservation at the Heart of Our Redevelopment

Because bats and their roosts are legally protected, all redevelopment work involving the roofs at the Naional Slate Museum or potential bat habitat is carried out under licence, and only during winter while the bats are away. 

Carola is working alongside our Museum and Construction teams to guide every step of this process, by ensuring that roost entrances remain open, structures remain suitable, and the bats can return safely each spring.  This careful approach allows us to progress with essential redevelopment while safeguarding a species that has lived alongside the museum buildings for generations.

The National Slate Museum redevelopment project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, UK Government via Cyngor Gwynedd as part of the Llewyrch o'r Llechi project, Welsh Government including the Community Facilities Programme, the Wolfson Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation and other funders. We are extremely grateful to all our funders for their support.      

Una is undergoing essential repairs at Boston Lodge, the engineering works of the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways. In December and January, a group of volunteers spent a couple of weekends offering their time to help with the task! 

Una the engine was built in 1905 by the Hunslet company of Leeds and worked at Pen-yr-Orsedd until about 1960, being used mainly to haul wagons of rubble inside the Quarry. Sadly, she failed her safety tests a few years ago and has had to remain out of action since then - much to the disappointment of staff and visitors.

This opportunity to help with the repairs has been a part of the collaboration between Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways and the National Slate Museum, as we knew people would jump at the chance to be a part of Una’s story! 

Over the course of two weekends, several volunteers helped to sand, scrape, clean and prepare metalwork from Una, ready for repainting. This is an essential part of restoring Una and ensuring the steam engine is preserved for future generations, as fresh paint helps protect the metal. 

"The day I spent working on Una has led to me pursuing the opportunity to volunteer on other projects within the Northwest Wales Slate Heritage Site... I really enjoyed the day" 

- David, volunteer

A big thank you to all those who came and contributed their time on cold winter weekends! It was wonderful to share Una’s story and see everyone’s passion shine through. 

As work continues with Una, we hope to offer more opportunities for people to engage with the journey! Join our mailing list to ensure you are kept up to date with the latest opportunities: 

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The project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, UK Government via Cyngor Gwynedd as part of the Llewyrch o'r Llechi project, Welsh Government including the Community Facilities Programme, the Wolfson Foundation and The Garfield Weston Foundation and other funders. We are extremely grateful to all our funders for their support. 

January is traditionally a quiet time. The thrill of the festive season has passed, and we all wait eagerly for the end of winter, but it is also a time for new beginnings. 

At St Fagans, we’re starting the year off with a bang! Over the next few months, you’ll notice lots of activity around the museum while we deliver projects to improve the visitor experience including: 

• Updating the play area 
• Re-roofing St Fagans Castle 
• Revamping Siop Losin and introducing a new range of products 
• An exciting redesign of the shop in the main building 
• Developing a new coffee shop in Gweithdy 
• Renovating the toilet block near Rhyd-y-car Terrace 

Your visit will be different during this time, and some areas will be closed. We’ll keep you updated with developments as they happen. 

Thank you for your patience while we undertake this work - we promise you it’ll be worth it! 

If you’d like to stay up to date with the latest news, you can sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media. 

Winter might seem like a quiet time in the gardens, but there's still plenty happening behind the scenes. As the days grow shorter and colder, the gardening team gets to work preparing for the season ahead. Some of the busiest areas are the Castle gardens, where we prune roses and trees, mulch the beds, and cut back the hedges.

The castle itself is surrounded by tall, thick yew hedges. These create ‘garden rooms’, small, enclosed spaces with different themes, hidden from one another. This style was especially popular in the Edwardian period. Each space had its own character, and the hedges and walls created a sense of surprise and discovery around every corner.

In the past, these hedges were trimmed entirely by hand but thankfully, we now use electric hedge cutters too!

We also work on the avenue of lime trees leading to the castle, which were planted in 1901. These are pollarded - a special way of pruning that involves cutting off the upper branches while keeping the main trunk. It’s hard work, but it helps maintain their striking shape and keeps the trees looking much as they would have done over the past century.

In the cottage gardens, we begin putting the gardens to bed for winter. This means cutting back spent plants, tidying the beds, and digging over the soil, much to the delight of the local robins, who follow us closely in the hope of finding a worm! We also add well-rotted manure to enrich the soil, helping us grow healthy, strong crops in the year ahead.

Another important job is harvesting materials for our Christmas wreaths. Each year, we make traditional wreaths to decorate the doors of our historic houses (you can read more about this in our online article from last Christmas!). To do this, we use natural materials gathered from around the museum grounds.

We coppice hazel and willow to make strong, flexible bases for the wreaths. Coppicing is a traditional and sustainable woodland practice, where young stems are cut back to ground level so that new shoots can grow. It was once a common method in Welsh gardens and woodlands. We also use other bendy plants like wisteria and crimson glory vine, which has beautiful curly tendrils that look lovely emerging from a wreath.

Even though the flowers have faded, there’s still plenty of magic in the gardens. Frost glitters on the seed heads and stems we’ve left standing to provide food and shelter for wildlife. Bare branches dusted with lichen create beautiful patterns against the winter sky. Red berries glow in the low sunlight. And if you’re lucky, you might even catch sight of a kingfisher swooping low over the ponds through the morning mist.

There’s still so much to see and enjoy as we head into winter in the St Fagans gardens.