Influential painter's debut at Hereford Museum and Art Gallery

8:00am Sunday 7th March 2010

By Philippa May

AN exhibition at Hereford Museum and Art Gallery provides the chance to see the work of the late Glyn Griffiths, an artist regarded as one of Wales’s most popular and influential painters of the last century.

Born in the Rhondda Valley in 1926, Glyn spent the last 12 years of his life in Herefordshire, where he taught parttime at what was then Hereford College of Art and Design, joining his wife Cynthia, who was the head of A-Level art at the sixth form college, the technical college and for a small group of students at the art college.

“I was desperate to get a graphic design course up and running, and Glyn suggested he could do it,” she said. “He applied and they gave him the job.”

Glyn studied at Cardiff School of Art under Ceri Richards, and, after serving in the Royal Navy, joined Birmingham College of Arts and Crafts, teaching illustration and design. He’s still remembered there for his mastery of media and the dynamic vigour of his teaching.

Throughout a varied life, Glyn painted wherever he and Cynthia lived. His main preoccupation was with rural and urban landscape and he worked in a wide range of materials.

One of the paintings in the Hereford exhibition, Girl from South Wales, started life as a commission but, says Cynthia, “they changed their minds, so he decided to keep it. He preferred painting landscapes – they never let him down”.

In spite of his considerable reputation and exhibitions in London, Cardiff, Newport, Aberystwyth, Birmingham and many others, the current exhibition in Hereford is the first time his work has been seen in the city.

“It was when I was talking to Pete Goodridge, a professional art carrier who came to take two pictures to the National Museum of Wales and two others to Birmingham, that the idea for this exhibition was born,” said Cynthia. “He asked if I’d talked to Hereford Museum and Art Gallery, and it was all arranged very quickly after that.”

Herefordshire Council’s cabinet member for economic development and community services, Councillor Adrian Blackshaw, is pleased to see the work on display.

“He was part of that generation of artists emerging after the war who gave post-war Britain a confidence and expression in design and painting so essential to the British style,” he said. “It’s nice that the work of an artist who inspired so many of the county’s future artists is on view again in the county.”

The exhibition can be seen at Hereford Museum and Art Gallery until Sunday, April 11.

Opening times: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, Sundays (from April) and Bank Holiday Mondays, 10am to 4pm. Closed Good Friday.