: Wales in the World

This article contains photos of human skeletal fragments.

The Biggest

We have some real whoppers in our collections - including a full-size Cardiff Tram and a sea rescue helicopter - but the biggest item in our collection is actually Oakdale Workmen's Institute.

Built in 1917, the Institute features a billiard room, dance hall and library - and is nowadays found in St Fagans National Museum of History.

Horace Watkins testing his monoplane in 1908

Many of the buildings in St Fagans are part of the national collection - meaning they have the same legal status as one of our masterpiece Monets or this coin hoard. The buildings are dismantled, moved, rebuilt - and cared for using traditional techniques, by the museum's legendary Historic Buildings Unit.
 

The Shiniest

People in Wales have been making, trading and wearing beautiful treasures from gold for thousands of years - like this Bronze Age hair ornament and this extremely blingy Medieval signet.

At around 4000 years old, this sun disc is one of the earliest and rarest examples of Welsh bling

One of the earliest examples of Welsh bling is this so-called 'sun disc', found near Cwmystwyth in Ceredigion.

Current research suggests that these 'sun discs' were part of ancient funeral practice, most likely sewn onto the clothes of the dead before their funerals. Only six have ever been found in the UK.
 

Honourable Mention: an Airplane made from a Dining Room Chair

Made from a dining room chair, piano wire and a 40 horsepower engine, the Robin Goch (Red Robin) was built in 1909 - and also features a fuel gauge made from an egg timer.

The Robin Goch (Red Robin) on display at the National Waterfront Museum

Its builder, Horace Watkins, was the son of a Cardiff printer - here he is pictured with an earlier, even more rickety version of his famous monoplane.
 

Horace Watkins testing his monoplane in 1908

Our collections are full of stories which reflect Wales' unique character and history. The Robin Goch is one of the treasures of the collection, and is an example of Welsh ingenuity at its best.

The UK's largest international art prize, Artes Mundi, draws to a close this February in Cardiff. As we celebrate the announcement that video artist John Akomfrah has won this year's prize, for his work exploring 400 years of human migration: let's take a look back at Cardiff's long tradition of celebrating radical and thought-provoking art.

Two portraits illustrate Welsh participation in the development of Britain’s maritime empire. One of these, a small full-length measuring 54.5 x 42.6 cm, was painted around 1764. Its subject is William Owen (1737-1778). The other was made in Canton, China, perhaps in 1791, and is of John Jones (1751-1828), a Captain in the service of the East India Company.

William Owen

William Owen (1737-1778)

William Owen came from a Montgomeryshire gentry family, the Owens of Cefyn-yr-Hafodau. Life at sea was dangerous, and progress up the career ladder was difficult and required influence as well as talent. However, it was a socially appropriate career for a gentleman, it required little investment, and there was the remote possibility of making a fortune from prize money.

Families had to persuade a Captain to accept their son on board as ‘a young gentleman’ to build up the six years’ service needed to qualify as a Lieutenant. William’s father obtained a recommendation to the Secretary of the Admiralty who placed the boy with his son-in-law. William served in West Africa and the West Indies, before sailing for India in 1754. He was to be in India for a hectic seven years, while Britain was at war with France.

William fought on land at the Battle of Plassey as well as at sea, being wounded with a musket ball. William, who was promoted Lieutenant in 1758, also took part in the blockade of the French base of Pondicherry and was again wounded in an attack on two French ships in the harbour.

In his portrait, Owen is wearing the uniform of a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy (pattern of 1748-1767). Part of his right arm is missing, as he explains in an account of his services:

‘on the night of 7 Oct 1760 he [was] ordered to cut out the French ships La Baleine and Hermoine from under the guns of Pondicherry, … [when] he had the misfortune to have his right arm shot off … by a Cannon Ball’.

Owen went on half-pay when the war ended in November 1762. Promotion in the Navy was slow in peacetime and in 1766 he accompanied Lord William Campbell, newly appointed as governor, to Nova Scotia. Campbell granted him an island in Passamaquoddy Bay (between New Brunswick and Maine). By 1771 there were seventy-three settlers on Owen’s island. As Britain and Spain then appeared close to war, he returned to England. However it was not until 1776 that he was recommissioned and ordered to India. Promotion followed and he was made Commander into the sloop HMS Cormorant. William did not live to see the end of that war as he was killed in a drunken accident in Madras in October 1778.

John Jones

John Jones (1751-1828)

The subject of the other portrait, John Jones was born in Swansea in August 1751. He came from a middle-class family, and was apprenticed a merchant seaman in the West India trade, He then served on the East India Company’s ship Queen, on a voyage to Madras and China in 1770-1772. On his return he joined the Royal Navy. In 1773 Britain was at peace, and he probably did so in the hope of improving his social as well as his professional status. He was less obviously officer-class than William Owen, and served as a Master, the warrant officer responsible for navigation, before being commissioned Lieutenant in 1782 at the end of the American War. He was now out of a job and re-joined the East India Company which he served for the next fifteen years. He was 1st Mate on the Carnatic in 1786-7, and of the Deptford in 1787-9. He was then appointed Captain of the East Indiaman Boddam, making three voyages to China in 1791-2, 1793-4 and 1800-1.

His private ledger survives for his first voyage in the Boddam and reveals that he invested £11,000 in goods to be sold in Madras and Canton including a pack of fox hounds, making a personal profit of nearly £4,000. He was then able to invest £7,500 in Chinese goods in Canton, which would have sold for a further profit in London.

His portrait was painted by Guan Zuolin, a Chinese artist active in Canton between 1770 and 1805. He worked in a flat, clear-cut European style using oils thinned with water. In 1794 Jones bought St Helen’s House, overlooking Swansea bay, which was rebuilt for him as a neo-classical villa by the architect William Jernegan. A view of about 1800 shows it set in its own parkland, grazed by Jones’s horses, cattle and sheep. Here he passed a comfortable retirement until his death in a carriage accident in 1828.

The most ambitious print project of the First World War

This exhibition presents the complete print series, The Great War: Britain’s Efforts and Ideals. These sixty-six prints were produced by the British government in 1917 as artistic propaganda with the aim of encouraging a war-weary public and raising support for the war effort.

Eighteen artists contributed to the series, including Augustus John, George Clausen and Frank Brangwyn – some of the most celebrated artists of the time.

As a government commission, the artists did not have full artistic freedom. They were given their subjects and each image had to pass censorship regulations.

The prints are divided into two sets of portfolios, ‘Ideals’ and ‘Efforts’. The ‘Ideals’ address the question of why Britain was at war and what it aimed to achieve. These images are dramatic and symbolic, such as The Freedom of the Seas and The Triumph of Democracy. The ‘Efforts’ illustrate some of the activities of the war effort, the means by which Britain was to achieve the ‘Ideals’. The Efforts are separated into nine subject headings, each depicting a different activity or theme.

Producing and Exhibiting

These prints were commissioned by Wellington House, a government department secretly set up to produce propaganda. The project was managed by the artist Thomas Derrick (1885–1954), and the printing carried out under the direction of the artist and contributor F. Ernest Jackson (1872–1945). The printer was Avenue Press, London.

The contributing artists were paid well, each receiving £210 (about £10,000 today) with the possibility of further royalties from sales. The prints were a limited edition of two hundred. The ‘Efforts’ were sold for £2 2s 0d (£100) each and the ‘Ideals’ for £10 10s 0d (£500).

As a government commission, the artists did not have full artistic freedom. They were given their subjects and each image had to pass censorship regulations.

The series was first exhibited at the Fine Art Society, London in July 1917, followed by regional art galleries around Britain. It was also shown in France and in America, where the majority of the portfolios were sent to be exhibited and sold.

Contemporary Reaction to Prints

“The very soul of the war is to be read in the set of sixty-six brilliant lithographs.”   
(The Illustrated London News, 1917)

These prints were commissioned as propaganda with the specific aim of raising civilian morale and manipulating public opinion towards the First World War in Britain and abroad. In 1917, after three years of hard fighting and unprecedented loss of life, the government needed a new way to maintain public support for the war. These prints were designed to remind people of the aims and objectives, and emphasise the importance of patriotic duty.

It is hard to know whether the prints were successful as propaganda. They were widely published when first exhibited in 1917. Some journalists supported the message, “To see these lithographs is a patriotic as well as an artistic duty” (Burton Daily Mail, Feb 15, 1918). Others were not so positive, “their efforts are in almost every instance sincere; yet the result is, on the whole, meagre and unsatisfying.” (The Daily Telegraph, 20 July 1917). In America, the reaction initially seemed positive, ‘they have been a revelation to American Fifth Avenue art patrons, dealer, critics…They put up British prestige’. However, prints sales there did not meet expectations and a loss was made on the project as a whole.

Lithography and the Senefelder Club

‘The most brilliant of the younger men are all now making remarkable lithographs…there is a genuine renaissance of the art’ (Joseph Pennell, 1914)

Lithography is a printing technique based on the principle that oil and water do not mix. An artist draws an image onto a smooth surface, traditionally a limestone, with a greasy material. Ink is then rolled onto the surface, it is attracted to the drawing, but repelled by the dampened un-drawn areas. Paper is laid down on the stone and run through a press. Different effects can be achieved using different greasy materials to draw. These can imitate a chalk or pencil drawing or even watercolour. Many of these prints were produced using a ‘transfer’ method, where a drawing made on special paper is transferred to the stone, rather than working on it directly. For colour lithographs, the artist begins with the design on a key-stone using one colour. Any further colours require a different stone, inked up and printed one on top of another.

Many of the contributing artists were members of the Senefelder club, a small club set up in 1908 to encourage and revive artistic lithography. It was named after the 18th century German inventor of the process. This portfolio was produced at a time of a revival of interest in the artistic opportunities of lithography.

Making Soldiers

Bringing in Prisoners - Eric Kennington

Over the Top - Eric Kennington

Into the Trenches - Eric Kennington

Ready for Service - Eric Kennington

The Gas Mask - Eric Kennington

Bayonet Practice - Eric Kennington

Showing soldiers in training and at the Front, one journalist described these prints as capturing ‘the spirit of our new, young army’. Kennington was probably chosen for this subject as he had himself enlisted with the 13th (Kensington) Battalion London Regiment and fought on the Western Front, France, 1914-1915. He was wounded and discharged as unfit in 1915. These prints do not attempt to depict the horror and tragedy of war; as in most of his war art, Kennington instead champions the common soldier.

Kennington was born in Chelsea, London, the son of a well-known portrait artist. He studied at St Paul’s Art School, the Lambeth School of Art and the City and Guilds School. He was appointed an official war artist from 1917-1919 and again in 1940-1943, painting portraits of sailors and airmen.

Making Guns

Lifting an Inner Tube - George Clausen

The Radial Crane - George Clausen

Turning a Big Gun - George Clausen

The Great Hammer - George Clausen

The Furnace - George Clausen

Where the Guns are made - George Clausen

Clausen researched this set of prints at the Royal Gun Factory, Woolwich Arsenal, London, which manufactured armaments, ammunition and explosives for the British Armed Forces. At its peak during the First World War it employed around 80,000 people and extended over 1,30 acres. Clausen was appointed an official war artist in 1917. As an older artist he did not go to the Front line, instead recording activities on the home front.

Clausen was born in London to George Clausen Senior, a decorative painter of Danish descent. He attended the Royal College of Art and South Kensington art schools, then the Académie Julian in Paris. He was a founding member of the New English Art Club and was elected Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy in 1904. He was knighted in 1927.

Building Aircraft

Swooping down on a Taube - Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Banking at 4,000 feet - Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

In the air - Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Acetylene Welder - Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Assembling Parts - Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Making the Engine - Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Nevinson’s prints were particularly admired when first exhibited. He ‘contrives to make the visitor almost giddy’, one critic wrote, another that he possessed ‘the power of expressing sensations rather than visual facts’.

Nevinson studied lithography under Ernest Jackson in 1912. At the outbreak of war he volunteered as an ambulance driver, an experience which deeply affected him. He was appointed an official war artist in 1917. These prints follow the process of building aircraft from making parts to assembly and flight. Acetylene Welder and Assembling parts both show the growing contribution of women workers.

Nevinson was born in London to the war correspondent and journalist Henry Nevinson. He studied at the Slade School and in Paris. He is one of the most renowned war artists of the period. His work was influenced by avant-garde European art movements such as Cubism and Futurism, yet slowly moved to a more realist style as he attempted to portray conflict.

Tending the Wounded

Casualty Clearing Station in France - Claude Shepperson

Convalescence in England - Claude Shepperson

In Hospital in England - Claude Shepperson

Detraining in England - Claude Shepperson

On Board a Hospital Transport - Claude Shepperson

Advanced Dressing Station in France - Claude Shepperson

These prints follow the journey of a wounded soldier from the Front Line, through treatment, to convalescence back at home. The organisers initially asked the artist Henry Tonks (1867-1937), a surgeon before becoming an artist, to respond to the work of the medical services. However, Tonks found the paper supplied ‘entirely unsympathetic’for drawing and declined. Shepperson was later commissioned for the subject and produced a very well received series.

Shepperson was born in Beckenham, Kent, and was a successful water-colourist, pen and ink artist, illustrator and lithographer. Having given up law he studied art in Paris and London. He is well-known for his humorous drawings contributed to the Punch magazine between 1905 and 1920.

Transport by Sea

The Place of Safety - Charles Pears

Maintaining Forces Overseas - Charles Pears

Transporting Troops - Charles Pears

Supplying the Navy - Charles Pears

Maintaining Export Trade - Charles Pears

Maintaining Food Supplies - Charles Pears

The merchant navy undertook vital tasks during the war, supporting naval ships, transporting troops and carrying essential supplies. It was dangerous work and the fleet suffered great losses. Pears’ images capture the ships in great detail.

Pears was born in Pontefract, Yorkshire and, although he worked as a successful illustrator and lithographer, is best known for his marine paintings. During the First World War Pears was a commissioned officer in the Royal Marines, and worked as an official naval artist from 1914-1918, and again in 1940. Throughout his career he was also a popular poster designer, creating works for organisations including the London Underground.