4 October - 22 December 2017
Oriel y Bont, Ty Crawshay
University of South Wales Treforest, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL / 03455 760101
Admission free / Monday-Thursday 8.30-5; Friday 8.30-4.30
As part of its eightieth-anniversary celebrations the Contemporary Art Society for Wales (CASW) is holding an exhibition at Oriel y Bont, University of South Wales, Treforest, of paintings, sculpture and prints it has gifted to the art collection at the University of South Wales. Accompanying the exhibition, which runs from the 4 October until 22 December, is a full-colour bilingual publication, researched and written by independent curator David Moore, highlighting all forty artworks by significant Welsh artists which the Society has gifted. It will also include twelve CASW-commissioned portfolio prints purchased by the University. The exhibition is supported by the Morel Trust and Brecknock Art Trust.
Together with a similar study of CASW-gifted works to Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Merthyr Tydfil, in 2015, the aim has been to bring 'into the light' the Society's huge impact upon public art collections in Wales since its creation in 1937.
The University's collection, much of which was developed during the curatorship of Dr Ceri Thomas, focuses upon the distinctive art of modern and contemporary south Wales, particularly the Valleys. Studies from the 1940s of a miner by Josef Herman and tinplate workers by Ceri Richards were CASW-gifted works inherited from earlier institutions. Further coal-mining related works were gifted in 2000. After the collection obtained museum status, major CASW gifts of work were received in 2006 and 2011 including important sculpture and work by women artists.
'We are very pleased,' says CASW's chair, Sandra Harding, 'that these artworks are part of an important art collection, within the University, which focuses on the visual culture of south Wales. During the last eighty years CASW has gifted more than eight hundred and fifty works of art to organisations making a significant contribution to the art collections of Wales.' Huw Williams, deputy vice-chancellor of the University of South Wales, indicates that 'The University's art collection is one of the tangible ways that the University demonstrates its close and continuing association with its communities.'