56 Group Wales
| Formation | 1956 |
|---|---|
| Type | Visual arts |
| Location |
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Membership
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Ken Elias
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| Website | www |
The 56 Group Wales (Welsh: Grŵp 56 Cymru) is an artists' organisation founded in Wales in 1956, with the aim of promoting Welsh Modernist art and artists. The name was originally simply the 56 Group: "Wales" was added in 1967, in response to a feeling that the organisation's "Welsh origins ought to be re-affirmed". The Welsh-language version of the name was first used on publicity in 1976.
The post-war art establishment in Wales was still very conservative and moves had been afoot since the late 1930s to create a modern art group. In March 1956, following a failed attempt to become a South Wales Academy of Art, a "rebellion" took place within the ranks of the South Wales Group and the 56 Group was established. Artists Eric Malthouse, David Tinker and Michael Edmonds were the leading instigators. They circulated a statement of purpose and aims and an invitation to join the group to ten leading Welsh artists.
That the first aims of painting and sculpture lie in the integration of design and emotion; the search for a powerful image that transcends the everyday world around us.
That the effect of environment is deeper and more all-embracing than the fortuitous mimicry of everyday surroundings. The painter and sculptor consciously seek a place to work where he feels at home.
Of those invited to join, nine accepted: Trevor Bates, Hubert Dalwood, George Fairley, Arthur Giardelli, Robert Hunter, Heinz Koppel, Will Roberts, John Wright and Ernest Zobole.Brenda Chamberlain, the only female artist invited, declined.
Although all twelve of the founder-members worked in a broadly modernist and internationalist idiom, they did not share a recognisably common style or ideology. Their average age was 36; and ten worked as art lecturers (Roberts and Edmonds did not). Only two, Roberts and Zobole, had been born in Wales: Fairley was born in Scotland, Koppel in Germany and the others in England.
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Wikipedia