TWO new exhibitions have opened at the Monnow Valley Art Centre in Walterstone, and will run until Sunday, August 31.

The first, Edgar Holloway 1914-2008: The Art of a Lifetime celebrates the centenary of the watercolourist and etcher with strong associations with the Black Mountains.

In 1942 he visited the Monastery at Capel-y-ffin where Eric Gill had lived from 1924-28, where the daughter of Gill’s old housekeeper, Daisy Monica Hawkins, was working. Daisy Monica was famous as one of the models who had posed for Gill in his series of engravings for 25 Nudes published in 1937. There was an immediate attraction between Edgar Holloway and Daisy Monica and they were married six weeks later in Abergavenny, settling eventually in Sussex.

Over the next 60 years Holloway frequently visited the Black Mountains to paint and draw and the centenary exhibition contains many etchings and watercolours made there since 1942.

At the same time, in the Artist’s Studio, there is a selling exhibition of 40 prints by Eric Gill, which, if not sold, will be auctioned off on Sunday, August 31. All proceeds go to help the charitable aims of the Monnow Valley Arts Centre and in particular to support the future exhibition programme.

For further detail, go to monnowvalleyarts.org, or call 01873 860529.